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FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



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FROM 



Comte to Benjamin Kidd 



THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY OR EVOLUTION 
FOR HUMAN GUIDANCE 



ROBERT MACKINTOSH 

B.D. (Edin.), M.A., D.D. (Glasg.) 

PROFESSOR AT LANCASHIRE INDEPENDENT COLLEGE 
AUTHOR OF " CHRIST AND THE JEWISH LAW " 



Nefo fforfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 
1899 

All rights reserved 



"\ 






31733 

Copyright, 1899, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

TWO COPIES, RECCIVEDr 







KoriuooH i^ress 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith 
Norwood Mass. U.S.A. 






DEDICATED 

WITH WARM REGARD 

TO 

W$t Heiwenfc ^principal g>cott 

B.A., D.D., LL.B. 

AND TO 

RECENT AND PRESENT STUDENTS OF LANCASHIRE 

INDEPENDENT COLLEGE 



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, / / 



PREFACE 

The historical sketch and criticism here attempted 
had its proximate origin in two consecutive years' 
work with a senior class of sociology at Lancashire 
College. In 1896-97 essays were prescribed on 
topics suggested by Mr. Benjamin Kidd's Social 
Evolution; while the seniors of 1897-98 attended 
lectures covering rather more ground. The mate- 
rial thus collected has been again revised and again 
considerably added to. The literature of the sub- 
ject is always growing. Some books of consequence, 
old or new, must have been overlooked. Still, it is 
hoped that the subject itself has well-defined limits. 
The appeal to biology, outlined by Comte, newly 
defined and emphasised by Darwinism, has now 
been stated in the most extreme form logically 
possible. Mr. Kidd's book holds that significant 
position. 

In studying the questions raised, the author has 
found himself, though with certain grave reserves, 
more and more thrown back upon philosophical 
principles learned at Glasgow, above twenty years 
ago, from the present Master of Balliol College. 

vii 



Vlil PREFACE 

I wish to express thanks for kind help on different 
points : to Professor Henry Jones of Glasgow Uni- 
versity ; to the Rev. A. Halliday Douglas, Cam- 
bridge ; and, among others, very special thanks to 
Professor J. Arthur Thomson and Mr. Norman 
Wyld. Both Mr. Thomson and Mr. Wyld, while 
busy with important work on the theory of natural 
selection, found time to give an amateur valuable 
information bearing on the meaning and merits of 
Weismann's doctrine of Panmixia. 

R. M. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

Introductory i 



PART I 
COMTISM, WITH SOME SCATTERED PARALLELS 

CHAPTER II 
Comte's Life and the Principles of his Teaching . . 10 

CHAPTER III 

The Appeal to Biology 28 

Note A : On " Natural Law in the Spiritual World " . 35 

CHAPTER IV 
The Appeal to History 38 

CHAPTER V 
The Doctrine of Altruism 49 

CHAPTER VI 

Comte's Lawgiving 60 

ix 



X CONTENTS 

PART II 
SIMPLE EVOLUTIONISM — SPENCER, STEPHEN 

CHAPTER VII 

PAGE 

Darwinian and Spencerian Conceptions of Evolution — 

Darwin ... 65 

CHAPTER VIII 

Darwinian and Spencerian Conceptions of Evolution — 

Spencer 76 

CHAPTER IX 
Mr. Spencer's Three Doctrines of Human Welfare . 93 

CHAPTER X 

Mr. Leslie Stephen's "Science of Ethics" . . .103 

PART III 
DARWINISM, OR STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

CHAPTER XI 

"Darwinism in Morals" — Miss Cobbe's Protest . .119 

CHAPTER XII 

Darwinism in Politics: Bagehot 124 

NoteB: On Professor Ritchie's "Darwinism and Politics" . 132 



CONTENTS XI 



CHAPTER XIII 

PAGE 

Darwinism in Ethics: Professor Alexander . . . 134 



CHAPTER XIV 
Reaction from Darwinism: Huxley 148 

CHAPTER XV 

Reaction from Darwinism: Drummond's "Ascent of Man" 154 

CHAPTER XVI 

Reiteration of Darwinism: Elimination made Absolute 

— Mr. A. Sutherland 169 

CHAPTER XVII 

The Metaphysics of Natural Selection . . . .185 

PART IV 
HYPER-DARWINISM — WEISMANN, KIDD 

CHAPTER XVIII 
A " Fairy Tale of Science " ? 233 

CHAPTER XIX 

Hyper-Darwinism in Sociology: Struggle made Absolute 

— Mr. Kidd 258 



CHAPTER XX 
Summary and Conclusions 278 



ANALYTICAL CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Science offers to supersede religion as guide to conduct — In form of 
theoretical sociology — Appealing to biology and evolution — 
Sociology distinguished from politics — From economics — From 
social philosophy — Akin to evolutionary ethics — Our point of 
view; morality taken for granted 

PART I 

COMTISM, WITH SOME SCATTERED PARALLELS 

CHAPTER II 

comte's life and the principles of his teaching 

Comte as founder — His life — His books — The term " Sociology " — 
" Statics " (cf. Spencer) — " Dynamics " — Divisions of the Polity 
— Comte's religion — The term "Positive" — Four authorities 
superseded — Comte on psychology — And on ethics — Law of 
the three stages — Criticism — Transition to the study of Comte's 
relation to science — He repudiates dogmatic atheism and mate- 
rialism — His scale of values in the hierarchy of the sciences — 
Spencer's criticism 

CHAPTER III 

THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 

The " social organism " in other writers — In Comte — Idealist supple- 
ment to the biological appeal — Professor Mackenzie's statement 

xiii 



XIV ANALYTICAL CONTENTS 

of the idealist view — Intuitionalist criticism of the appeal — 
Comte uses a biological parable — Consistent phenomenalism 
means (if not evolutionism) hedonism — Comtism and hedonism 
two half-truths 

[Note A. On Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual 
World — "Biological religion," according to Finlayson — Drum- 
mond appeals to biogenesis — His religion is Calvinistic, rather, 
or Gnostic — His noble zeal for continuity in knowledge] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 

In Dr. Hatch — Criticism — In Ritschl, how far Comtist — Other 
appeals; to historic parallels — Example from Comte — To the 
whole tendency of history — More usual in Comte ; examples — 
Criticism — Mr. Mackenzie's criticism — Guidance to be gained 
from history is limited — Comte's varied and capricious appeals 
to it 

CHAPTER V 

THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 

A fragment of ethics — On a psychological basis — Opposes psycho- 
logical hedonism — Healthily, but incompetently — Fitzjames 
Stephen's objection to it; we cannot alter nature's forces! — That 
is good determinism, but bad morals — Ethically, is a new con- 
ception of virtue — Scientifically worthless [Mr. Baldwin] — " Bal- 
ance" is preferred to altruism by Butler at times — By Spencer — 
Criticism 

CHAPTER VI 

comte's lawgiving 

Its principles — The separation of the temporal and spiritual powers 
— Political character of Comte's sociology — Details — Summary 



ANALYTICAL CONTENTS XV 

PART II 
SIMPLE EVOLUTIONISM — SPENCER, STEPHEN 

CHAPTER VII 

DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN CONCEPTIONS OF EVOLUTION — DARWIN 

Evolution came as a surprise — Darwin deals with biology — With 
species only — Taking "Struggle" from Malthus, he perceives in 
it (natural) "Selection" — A true cause, but minute; an im- 
mensely slow process — Compare the replies to Malthus — Sexual 
Selection accelerating — Or Use-Inheritance — But too much La- 
marck, making variation not " casual," but purposeful, would 
render unnecessary the " selective " action of " nature " — Recent 
doubts as to use-inheritance 

CHAPTER VIII 

DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN CONCEPTIONS OF EVOLUTION — SPENCER 

A cosmic philosophy — Resting on correlation of forces — And on 
hypothesis of organic evolution — Emphasising natural (physical, 
material) law — Darwinism as a cosmic philosophy ? Alexander 

— Cf. Lotze — Cf. Fiske — Spencer values true use -inheritance as 
accounting for a priori knowledge — But natural selection is not 
the source of his laissez /aire doctrine; he looks forward to a 
future " balance " — His relation to embryology — Evolution means 
growing complexity — In terms of matter — Two other phases — 
Dissolution as death — As catastrophe — Equilibrium is theoreti- 
cal and prophetic — Spencer's sequence of the three phases — 
Criticisms: on the assumed beginning of the process — On its 
isolation — On equilibrium, as involving a different point of view 

— Reason is more than a new phase of complexity — The whole 
process breaks up into a series of separate evolutions in complexity 

CHAPTER IX 

MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES OF HUMAN WELFARE 

Goodness is more evolved conduct, i.e. is " wisdom " — An appeal to 
(cosmic) history! — It is balance, of egoism and altruism — An 



xvi ANALYTICAL CONTENTS 

appeal to economics and to (hedonistic) psychology — It is indi- 
vidual freedom — An appeal to rights, and to (human) history, 
emerging from militarism — For which Spencer feels an exag- 
gerated dread — Spencer masses facts rather than unifies know- 
ledge — The " social organism " is only a phrase with him 

CHAPTER X 

MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S SCIENCE OF ETHICS 

Stephen a utilitarian — Who came to believe in evolution as a scien- 
tific fact — Begins here with facts; ethical judgments exist — 
Organisms seek maximum efficiency — If social " tissue " is " or- 
ganic " — Then ethical laws may be the conditions of maximum 
social efficiency — (Nature cares for individuals) — Nature says, 
"Be strong! " — Ethics says, "Society, be strong! " — The ethical 
is the typical society, and therefore ethical judgments are binding 
— But the type is actual, not ideal ! — Society is a complex whole, 
changing while its parts are unchanged — Criticism — Sanction 
for individual goodness lies in sympathy merely — Sometimes we 
are too good for our own interests ! — Compared with Comte, lacks 
authority — With Spencer; calls "health " the ideal, and ridicules 
"balance" — With Darwin; not struggle of individual with indi- 
vidual, but of individual with society — With Utilitarianism; dis- 
courages the calculation of consequences — Most of his positions 
may be accepted in a deeper sense 



PART III 

DARWINISM, OR STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 

CHAPTER XI 

"DARWINISM IN MORALS" — MISS COBBE'S PROTEST 

Darwinism may be applied to morals by analogy — Or, as here, by 
explaining man's evolutionary origin — Miss Cobbe attacks Dar- 
win's explanation of the rise of morals out of intelligence plus 
sympathy — And the hypothetical palliation of murder — Little 
trace of natural selection in Darwin's ethical statement — Darwin's 
analysis may be accepted, not his view of reason 



ANALYTICAL CONTENTS xvii 

CHAPTER XII 

DARWINISM IN POLITICS — BAGEHOT 

Applies Darwinism by analogy — Evolution transforms imperceptibly 

— By nerve tissue in our case; but nothing depends on this asser- 
tion of use-inheritance by Bagehot; it is a mere illustration — 
Not ethnological, but political questions — Problems both of prog- 
ress and of differentiation — 1st, Custom as the remedy for primi- 
tive wildness in the " fit " — Criticism — 2nd, Customs winnowed 
by the test of war — 3rd, Free discussion — Race blending, etc., 
as minor factors — Three limitations on the Darwinian principle 
in Bagehot's application of it 

[Note B. On Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics — 
Inconsistency between the different essays — One interesting hint] 

CHAPTER XIII 

DARWINISM IN ETHICS — PROFESSOR ALEXANDER 

Fusion of idealism and naturalism — Moral judgments are facts, but 
the assertion of free will is absurd — Criticism ; capricious ; ignores 
the content of moral judgments and the germ of a system in them 

— Punishment grouped with dynamics? — Statics are truly, though 
imperfectly, moral — Goodness is a twofold " equilibrium " — This 
doctrine is enforced against other definitions — In the Dynamics 
equilibrium is revealed as endlessly changing, and is called " com- 
promise" — Ideals compete like organisms for survival — Criticism; 
not {a) true Darwinian struggle, nor (Jj) true extinction — The 
new ideals are not wholly new — Ideals are complementary — So 
far as he Darwinises he is false to morality 

CHAPTER XIV 

REACTION FROM DARWINISM — HUXLEY 

Reaction as to ethics — Due to the vision of struggle and pain — Not 
sympathy but justice is essential — It must suspend outright the 
cosmic process — Older evolutionism (Greece, India) gave no 
guidance — Criticism; nature and spirit are opposed — Yet con- 
nected, and reason fulfils the cosmic process by transforming it 



xviii ANALYTICAL CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XV 

REACTION FROM DARWINISM — DRUMMOND'S ASCENT OF MAN 

His precursors — His sympathy for Spencer — His Comtist terminology 
— Seeks a biological basis for altruism — Corrects Darwin — Not 
like Miss Cobbe — Largely like Huxley — But seeks a fairer state- 
ment of the facts — Brings in a second biological function (out of 
three !), viz. reproduction — Wallace, on the selection of reason — 
Leads up to doctrine of "Arrest of the Body " — Cf. Cleland on the 
human skull — Emphasis on maternity and weakness of human 
infant — Criticism; "egoism" and its struggle purely evil? — Or 
male sex with its justice? — Is domesticity = sociality? — Has 
Drummond shown a factor in progress? — A better philosophy 
claims all nature for God 



CHAPTER XVI 

REITERATION OF DARWINISM: ELIMINATION MADE ABSOLUTE — 
MR. A. SUTHERLAND 

A strong book with some weaknesses — Works out the origin of moral 
feeling by natural selection — Restates Drummond-like position 
as Darwinian (?) — And exemplifies " arrival " of forms — Biology ; 
fitness to survive — And to breed, and rear — Quantity first relied 
on — Then quality — This develops sympathy — Which becomes 
serviceable — Anthropology ; everything depends on the ap- 
proaches to monogamy — Sociology ; progress is by elimination 
of the inferior — Even when it seems to find more rapid means 

— (Yet he allows some progress by imitation!) — History ; retro- 
gression is possible ! — For he hates all militarism — On the whole 
he does not believe in history — Or in reason — Ethics ; Has dealt 
only with one half of goodness ! — Egoism must balance sym- 
pathy ! — Balance will grow automatic! — Criticism; no right to 
call sympathy moral, if only half of morality — Nature does not 
select one quality at a time! — Selection said to have worked — 
Not true natural selection, though — Why is goodness not auto- 
matic already? — Do beauty and goodness exist, or do they riot? 

— "Yes and no ! " 



ANALYTICAL CONTENTS xix 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 

I. Chance in relation to purpose, as accident — As absence of design — 

In relation to law; as blind law — As blind combination of laws 

— Compare with the last the scientific or mechanical view of the 
world; a number of separate substances ruled by a number of 
independent laws — Good enough for science, not for philosophy 

— Darwin ought not to assume things as really disconnected, 
merely because he has not needed to investigate their connection 

— As if organism and environment were accidentally brought 
together — Or as if organism and organism were mere rivals — 
(They are rivals !) — Or as if force and force were disconnected? 

II. Darwin treats variation as casual, i.e. as a thing with no bearing 
in itself on the purpose of the species — His theory allows this 
assumption — But does not prove it — We all habitually under- 
stand the theory in that sense, e.g. in contrasting natural selection 
with use-inheritance — On the fact, evidence is wanted — Con- 
ceivably variation may choose very irregularly between many fixed 
possibilities — This seems to point back to disconnected laws, as 
in last section 

III. Even on Darwin's own view he is hardly entitled to call the 
process of evolution natural selection — Aggregate range of possi- 
ble variation is fixed by the nature of the material — Two agencies 
must be taken together — Of the two the varying organism, not 
the blindly selecting environment, seems the better to account for 
rise of new qualities — Summary of I., II., III. 

IV. Kinds of natural selection, A, B, and C — B exists ! — If organic 
evolution is a fact, C exists ! — Accelerating any other evolutionary 
force that may exist, and of course involving B — If A is found 
alongside of C, A must have a separate field where C cannot enter, 
else inconsiderable — Natural selection (C) lasts as long as nature 
is nature — Even along with (the more rapid force of) animal 
intelligence — True reason checks it — Does natural selection ever 
work by itself (A) ? — Higher animals with fewer births evolve as 
quickly as lower; has a new force arisen? or was natural selec- 
tion never the leading force? — [Can we regard intelligence as the 
new evolving force? Dr. Mellone assumes its operation every- 
where !] 



XX ANALYTICAL CONTENTS 

V. Can natural selection apply to men? — Biologically — Struggle with 

beasts is over — Famine (A) is rare, and of doubtful tendency — 
Pestilence (C) does harm — Vice (B) — Crime (B) — War (selects 
the wrong way) — Religious celibacy (i&.) — Summary — Socio- 
logically — Mr. Kidd's insistence on struggle is really biological; 
is unproved; is not an insistence on natural selection — Ethically 

— Mr. Alexander's competition of " Ideals" is exaggerated — And 
itself implies reason and sympathy — Mr. Sutherland's elimination 
of evil doers ignores positive causes of moral progress — Exempli- 
fied typically in Jesus Christ 

VI. If natural selection does not operate where reason and conscience 
exist, it yet may originate them in the loose and incorrect sense in 
which natural selection is said to originate things ! — If reason, 
etc., were, as most suppose, evolved and selected — How selected? 

— Have adjacent races died out? 

VII. Other idealist views — Professor Ritchie praises natural selection 
more fully, in vague terms and in some passages — Mr. Sandeman 
rejects it, because he believes in the teleological perfection of 
every organism — But is it possible to get over the impression 
produced by rudimentary organs ? — It is enough if the whole of 
nature is good, and its parts relatively fit — Dr. Stirling believes 
the casual variation which makes an individual can never make a 
type — Is it certain that every individual is born differentiated? — 
Or that any differences are incapable of growing by cumulation 
into a type? — Possible value of the hypothesis of natural selec- 
tion, even if a fiction 



ANALYTICAL CONTENTS xxi 

PART IV 

HYPER-DARWINISM — WEISMANN, KIDD 

CHAPTER XVIII 

A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 

An intenser assertion of struggle — Not on ground of experiment; 
evidence is ambiguous — On ground of a theory of heredity — 
Darwin's theory (Pangenesis) assumed derivation of embryonic 
qualities from qualities and tissues of parental organism — Use- 
inheritance possible or probable on this view — But "Atavism" 
forced the concession, some " gemmules " had passed on undevel- 
oped from earlier generations till they found their chance — 
Galton's figures for resemblance to ancestors — Hence theories 
asserting " continuity of the germ plasm " — Parable of the hie- 
rarchy — Galton (" Stirp ") does not absolutely deny the possibility 
of use-inheritance — But in Weismann's earlier and more consis- 
tent views, founded on by Mr. Kidd, amphimixis is the only cause of 
variation — Extrusion of one of the " polar bodies " securing ( ?) 
non-identity of all offspring of same pair — Permutations and com- 
binations of qualities of unicellular organisms — Nature selecting 
fittest adults, and in them best germ plasm — Parable of the 
suckers — Of the Nile — No new quality arises, but amount of 
each telling quality increases — Qualities arose originally, Lamarck 
fashion, from environment, when unicellular life lay open to its 
pressure — Unicellular organisms (propagating by fission) and 
germ plasm are potentially immortal — Correlation alleged between 
sex and (natural) death; now sex is absent from the unicellular 
world — Natural selection might account for the predominance 
(if not origin) of sex if Weismann would assume the necessary 
competition — Romanes alleges that natural selection might ac- 
count for predominance of habit of dying natural death; but 
would not death by violence sufficiently prevent any race (immersed 
in the struggle) from falling into wholesale decrepitude? — Origin 
of sex and death a mystery; or " chance " variation ! or effect of 
molecular constitution of germ plasm ! — Weismann's appeal to 
" natural selection," while he denies " struggle," is metaphysical 
in the worst sense — Recapitulation, and note of some of Weis- 



xxii ANALYTICAL CONTENTS 

mann's changes of opinion before 1893 — Especially this change: 
Environment may do something to modify germ plasm ! — 
Making true use-inheritance conceivable, though not inevitable 

— Mr. Kidd is anachronous — Panmixia, the absence of natural 
selection, is held to involve indefinite retrogression; important; 
questionable 

CHAPTER XIX 

hyper-darwinism in sociology: struggle made absolute — 

MR. KIDD 

Resemblance to Comte — Intenser emphasis on biology [cf. Mr. Platt- 
Ball] — (1) Panmixia = degeneration is inconsistent with dreams 
of socialism or of final balance — Selfishness, however, may not 
care for remote consequences — [Ought Panmixia further to imply 
extinction?] Also, social "statics" are blotted out — And evolu- 
tion becomes almost identical with progress — Could not Mr. Kidd 
save many essential positions without this assumption? — (2) Next, 
if progress implies struggle — And selfish reason makes unwilling 
to struggle for good of the race, supernatural counterpoise of 
religion must help, as hitherto — Now, Weismann had riddled his 
own position with qualifications — Kidd also appeals to biology by 
a doctrine of the social organism; but everything here depends on 
philosophy, not biology — (3) First, the doctrine of reason; reason 
is formal, as with A. J. Balfour, Darwin, Drummond — For Mr. 
Kidd also holds that biological law applies without a break to 
rational man — Yet reason disturbs process of evolution — And 
Bagehot, Stephen, Drummond have noted other changes due to it 

— Can it be wholly evil ? — Balfour and Kidd repudiate Kant or 
Coleridge's deeper sense of " reason " — But they cannot avoid 
such sense if it lies in the word and in the fact — (4) Secondly, 
doctrine of religion as anti-rational — Not = "future judgment"; 
that is rational ! — Can we believe the irrational? — Does not Kidd 
tamper with Christian equalitarianism? — Biologically; variation 
may be purposeful and professive — Historically; reason is pro- 
gressive; by rational methods — Religion its fulfilment — It needs 
a force to give it motive and constancy 



ANALYTICAL CONTENTS xxiii 

CHAPTER XX 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

Self-contradictions — Cornte is arbitrary — Biology has been reinforced 
by evolutionary theories, yielding different forms of sociological 
doctrine — I. Analogy, without struggle, Stephen — 2. Continuity, 
without struggle, Spencer, Alexander (partly) — 3. Analogy of 
Darwinism, Bagehot, Alexander, Ritchie (?) — 4. Continuity of 
natural selection, Sutherland, Drummond(?),Kidd — None of these 
wholly succeed; Old authorities will return ! — Or idealism, which 
is compatible with the old authorities, may give us a more satisfy- 
ing doctrine of evolution — What have we been taught? — (1) A 
social organism exists — Idealism reinforces this lesson — (2) Strug- 
gle has been useful; will it not be? as discussion? as competition? 

— In light of idealism this seems possible — Of fact, probable — 
Must not exaggerate its place; it is subordinate in life of reason — 
[Mallock] — Finally, does progressiveness of evolution make it a 
guide to conduct? — Difficulties in biology ; environment constant? 

— Some forms have stopped ! — Some never started ! — Differentia- 
tion plainer here than progress — Reason makes for progress in his- 
tory — Is it all-sufficient? (Mill, Buckle) — Ancient civilisation failed 
— Morality and Christianity must safeguard modern civilisation 



FROM 
COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY 

Science offers to supersede religion as guide to conduct — In form of 
theoretical sociology — Appealing to biology and evolution — Soci- 
ology distinguished from politics — From economics — From social 
philosophy — Akin to evolutionary ethics — Our point of view; 
morality taken for granted 

When the French garrison left Rome in 1870, 
fears were openly expressed that anarchy would 
break out, but the Italian troops were promptly 
marched in, and all went quietly. Religion is 
supposed to be a retreating force in modern life, 
and many, even of those who are no friends to 
religion, suffer grave apprehensions as they look 
forward to a state of society emancipated from all 
religious restraint; but others tell us that science 
will find a remedy. Religion may go off duty, but 
science will take its place. Never was this concep- 
tion more confidently advanced, or with more elabo- 
ration, than in the first founding of sociology under 
its present name. 

We must clear the ground, however, by a distinc- 
tion. It is theoretical sociology that we have in 



2 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap. 

view, — a coherent, deliberate body of doctrines, 
making, among other claims, the startling claim 
which we have noted above. Much that goes under 
the name of sociology is matter of quite a different 
kind. We may call it practical sociology, and we 
may describe it as a somewhat formless mass of 
good intentions. In detail it offers many valuable 
suggestions ; scientifically it is a thing of naught. 
If we were foolish enough to busy ourselves with it in 
this discussion we should be embarking on unknown 
waters, possibly upon a shoreless sea. We shall 
therefore take nothing to do with practical sociology. 
It is the science or alleged science of sociology that 
claims our attention. 

One outstanding feature of this science is its con- 
nection with biology. In the early days of modern 
history, mathematics stood out in sharp and isolated 
relief as a well-finished and well-formulated science. 
Hence an impression got abroad that other sciences 
were to be perfected by treatment on mathematical 
lines. Spinoza's Ethics, with its array of definitions, 
postulates, and axioms, and with its pedantic series of 
syllogisms, is only the most celebrated and most 
notable among many similar attempts. In our time, 
biology seems to have cast a like spell upon the 
minds of not a few. It is biology nowadays which 
threatens to invade and annex every province of 
thought. Already in Auguste Comte, the founder 
or the godfather of sociology, biology counts for a 
great deal, and subsequent evolutionary speculation 
has enlarged its claims to infinity. If we achieve 
anything in this essay, it will probably be in the way 
of finding a definition (or a cluster of definitions) for 



I INTRODUCTORY 3 

the fascinating term " evolution," and in forming an 
estimate of the value which it, or which they, may 
possess as affording guidance to human conduct. 

Let us further clear our thoughts before beginning 
our investigation by endeavouring to "place" soci- 
ology, provisionally, in relation to other kindred 
sciences. 

In contrast with Politics, sociology deals with the 
informal or unintended 1 results of human associ- 
ation. In ancient days the line of division scarcely 
existed. The conception of a natural growth had 
never been applied to society. Speculation in early 
times was exceedingly sanguine, and counted upon 
refashioning society at its pleasure. We have 
learned from age-long experience that human nature 
is not so easily tamed or managed, even by those 
who try to manage it for its own good. We turn 
away incredulously from stories of a lawgiver who 
stamped his own personality and ideas upon many 
generations. Perhaps we go too far in our recoil 
from the ancient belief in the powers of the wise 
man. He may not always have been a myth ; his 
results might even be repeated. And yet, essen- 
tially, we are in the right. "All the world," as we 
say, is wiser than anybody in the world. To take a 
more definite example, the House of Commons is 
alleged to possess better taste than any one of its 
members. Our modern attitude is partly fatalism, 
but it is partly religious faith. 

A second science may be thought of, which deals 

1 Compare Mr. Mallock's definition of evolution as " the reasonable 
sequence of the unintended " {Aristocracy and Evolution, p. 97), 
quoted in our closing chapter. 



4 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap. 

with the objective and involuntary tendencies of 
social conduct — economics or political economy. 
This was on the ground before modern sociology, 
and Comte, who gave the latter science its name and 
claimed to be its author, regarded economics as a 
fragment of social science, wrongly studied in isola- 
tion from the rest, and therefore resulting in mistaken 
practical conclusions. In point of fact, one of the 
great difficulties or ambiguities of sociology arises 
no less plainly in economics. How make the transi- 
tion from study of facts to maxims for conduct ? In 
other words, is political economy an art or a science ? 
The accepted view nowadays regards political econ- 
omy as a science — the science of wealth ; and in 
spite of Comte' s protest, it is recognised as a distinct 
science, independent, in a sense, of sociology ; and 
that, mainly because more definite conclusions are 
possible in regard to wealth than in regard to the 
wider social interests of mankind. On the other 
hand, it is fully recognised that, if you wish to frame 
maxims for conduct, you have to take much into 
account besides the economic tendencies of action. 
And it is also confessed that in its " palmy days " 
political economy had identified itself with a system 
of individualism — with a hard doctrine of individual 
rights, more especially rights of property — which 
may well be thought a menace to the public interests. 
Nevertheless — such is the irony of circumstances! 
— practically the same system has reappeared in all 
its stringency in the form of Mr. Herbert Spencer's 
sociology. 

Thirdly : Professor Mackenzie's Introduction to 
Social Philosophy adds another distinction — that of 



1 INTRODUCTORY 5 

social philosophy in contrast with social science. 
Sociology claims to rank as a science ; Mr. Macken- 
zie, who is entitled to respect, both on his own ac- 
count and as representing generally the position of 
the great Hegelian or Idealist school, conceives that 
there are philosophical positions presupposed in 
social science which need separate discussion. In 
consequence or partly in consequence of this, Mr. 
Mackenzie's book does not aim at giving us a body 
of social doctrines, but at vindicating on philosophi- 
cal grounds what he regards as wholesome social 
principles. The main significance of this, we think, 
is as follows, that, in contrast with the school which 
seeks to reduce social well-being to a problem in 
science, in analogy as far as may be to physical 
science and in close connection with it, there is an- 
other school, not less attached to a doctrine of cor- 
porate well or ill, which finds the highest authority 
in regard to human conduct in metaphysics. 

Fourthly : We might speak of the relation of 
sociology to ethics. But here the floods threaten to 
break loose and drown us. Here we come face to 
face with the question already mentioned — the ques- 
tion of the transition from science to art; from 
noting how things happen to declaring how they 
ought to happen. Without enlarging further upon 
that topic at this stage in our discussion, we may 
at least call attention to the fact that historically there 
has been a very close kinship between sociology and 
ethics. Their problem is almost, if not altogether, the 
same ; the answer formulated is sometimes labelled 
"sociology," at other times "ethics," as on shipboard 
the jam is sometimes described as raspberry, some- 



6 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap. 

times as plum, sometimes, it may be, as guava, yet in 
all you taste the monotonous flavour of apple, or of 
burnt sugar. Not less alike to each other are evolu- 
tionary ethics and evolutionary sociology. Thus — 
to anticipate for a moment — sociology was originally 
formulated by Comte as the true guide to conduct, 
the new authority, destined to supersede both ethics 
and religion. — He modified this position in later days, 
as we shall see, but only within limits, and at the out- 
set it was announced as we have given it. — Soci- 
ology offered to guide man with the help of biology ; 
society was an organism ; man was a member in the 
organism ; a part, not the whole ; essentially depend- 
ent on the whole, and bound to serve its interests. 
This conception reappears in Mr. Spencer ; he works 
out its suggestions in his own way, which is not 
Comte's ; but still he appeals to the analogy between 
society and an organism ; and he calls the discussion 
sociology. But when we turn to Mr. Leslie Stephen's 
Science of Ethics, we meet with identically the same 
discussion. True, Mr. Stephen prefers the expression 
" social tissue " to the expression "social organism," 
but the difference is essentially one of detail, and 
does not affect the question before us. We are still 
working the biological analogy, yet, if you please, 
this is ethics we are working at. The brand, no 
doubt, is different ; the liquor is the same. Spencer 
has elsewhere and in different form his discussion of 
ethics ; Stephen's ethics run parallel, not to Spencer's 
ethics, but to Spencer's sociology. Again, Professor 
Alexander's Moral Order and Progress is, as the 
name implies, an .ethical discussion, yet the author 
finds it impossible to discuss the problems of per- 



I INTRODUCTORY 7 

sonal ethics apart from the relation of the individual 
to society, and his book is penetrated throughout with 
biological and evolutionary suggestions, most of all 
with the Darwinian struggle for existence. But such 
suggestions meet us at every hand in modern socio- 
logical discussions ; nay more, such suggestions it 
was the professed business of sociology to supple- 
ment and apply to human life. It is plain, therefore, 
that sociology and ethics, as sociologists generally 
conceive of sociology and of ethics, cannot be sepa- 
rated from each other. Some forms of ethical 
thought will wander far from the line of treatment 
proper to us in this essay. But, wherever you have 
these two things — an interpretation of duty as the 
debt which man, the individual, owes to society ; and 
secondly, the appeal to phenomenal fact as the only 
safe or real authority — there sociology and ethics 
must necessarily approach, intertwine, or even co- 
alesce. And therefore it would mutilate a study of 
sociological theories, not to include in our review 
those ethical systems which are plainly of the same 
house and lineage. 

Every argument proceeds upon certain assump- 
tions ; and it may be as well to confess at the outset 
what is to be assumed in the following essay, viz. 
the trustworthiness of the moral consciousness, or the 
reality of the distinction between right and wrong. 
This test will not be formally set aside, except by a 
few wild thinkers ; but it may be objected that 
assumptions ought to be vindicated, ought to be 
justified. Very true ; our test needs justification 
by philosophy, and we believe that philosophy can 



8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD chap. 

do the necessary work, but not here. We cannot 
incorporate en passant a body of metaphysical prole- 
gomena to ethics. We must be allowed to let our 
point of view stand as an assumption. 

Looking at matters thus, although we seek to 
learn from the theories reviewed, and especially from 
the interesting and valuable details which they have 
collected, yet our analysis will necessarily to a large 
extent be hostile. 

First, we ask whether the various theories agree 
with each other? And on this Mr. Benjamin Kidd, 
himself a sociologist, tells us that sociologists are 
hopelessly divided in their attempts to furnish prac- 
tical guidance. The science was to have been founded 
by Comte fifty years ago and more ; Mr. Kidd seems 
to think it still needs founding by a new recurrence 
to biology. It is plain, therefore, that the appeal to 
fact has not yet done for the study of society what 
it promised to do. Neither theologians nor meta- 
physicians could have been more hopelessly at issue 
among themselves than the votaries of fact have been 
and still are. Secondly, we ask whether each author 
is so much as self -consistent ? Thirdly, we ask, 
granted that we learn some fresh truth, is it taught 
us authoritatively by science, whether by the science 
of biology or by some other ? or has natural science 
merely suggested parables to the moral judgment? 
These formal or logical tests pretty well clear the 
ground. A remainder of our theories, however, is 
overthrown (fourthly) by the final test, by the touch- 
stone of the moral consciousness. 

Positively our argument can hardly be said to go 
beyond this point, that if biological clues are to afford 



I INTRODUCTORY 9 

guidance for human conduct, they must be supple- 
mented by clearer moral and religious light, and in 
philosophy by some scheme of metaphysical evolu- 
tionism, marking a transition perhaps from " Darwin" 
to " Hegel." 



PART I 

COMTISM, WITH SOME SCATTERED PARALLELS 



CHAPTER II 

comte's life and the principles of his teaching 

Comte as founder — His life — His books — The term " Sociology " — 
"Statics" (cf. Spencer) — "Dynamics" — Divisions of the Polity 
— Comte's religion — The term "Positive" — Four authorities 
superseded — Comte on psychology — And on ethics — Law of 
the three stages — Criticism — Transition to the study of Comte's 
relation to science — He repudiates dogmatic atheism and mate- 
rialism — His scale of values in the hierarchy of the sciences — 
Spencer's criticism 

Alone perhaps of all sociologists, Comte may claim 
to have his life studied, however briefly, as an inte- 
gral part of the gospel he teaches. 

Auguste Comte was born at Montpellier in 1798. 
He was early distinguished for his mathematical 
ability ; also for a refractoriness to authority, which 
led to his expulsion from the Polytechnic School of 
Paris. In 18 1 8 he met St. Simon the socialist, and 
became for six years his close friend and disciple ; 
but the alliance was broken off by a violent quarrel, 
never to be healed. In 1825 he married. The union 
proved conspicuously unhappy, and ended in a sepa- 
ration in 1842. In 1826 he began lectures upon his 

10 



chap, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 1 1 

system of philosophy ; and though they were inter- 
rupted for a time by an attack of insanity, the lectures 
attracted great attention. Between 1830 and 1842 
they were published in six volumes under the title of 
System of Positive Philosophy. While working for 
fame or usefulness by developing his system, Comte 
worked for bread and butter by the exercise of his 
mathematical talent, mainly in the service of that 
Polytechnic School from which he had been expelled 
in his student days. His eminence as a heresiarch 
cost him his connection with the school ; and there- 
after he lived by his earnings as a private tutor, or 
by the gifts of his devoted disciples. In 1845 he 
became acquainted with his Egeria, a lady named Clo- 
thilde de Vaux, with whom he fell passionately in love, 
and to whom he looked back with passionate regret 
till his death in 1857, the lady having lived only one 
year after making acquaintance with Comte. There 
was no stain on their friendship, though it was the 
occasion of a good deal of folly upon Comte's part. 
In his later years, 1851-54, Comte published the 
second part or second form of his system, the Posi- 
tive Polity. 

We do not attempt to mention other works, but it 
is necessary to say something about the Philosophy 
and the Polity. The earlier treatise, the Philosophy y 
was an encyclopedia of scientific knowledge, as it 
then existed, crowned with the first rough sketch of 
the science of sociology. It was condensed in an 
English translation by Harriet Martineau, a transla- 
tion which was afterwards retranslated into French, 
as being an improvement upon Comte's own state- 
ment. This may be called our English tit-for-tat in 



12 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

exchange for Dumont's relation to Bentham. The 
book was recently republished in English, when an 
able reviewer x protested against the absurdity of 
offering the reading public the science of fifty or 
sixty years ago. The Positive Polity ', on the other 
hand, is sociology from beginning to end ; looking 
back, as we shall see, to the survey of the inferior 
sciences made in the Positive Philosophy, but work- 
ing out its own problems on the grand scale. 

In the earlier book we have the two main divisions 
of sociology — first, social statics, or the conditions 
of social order ; these are treated briefly ; secondly, 
social dynamics, or the historical laws of social prog- 
ress in the past. 

All three names are somewhat singular. The 
name sociology — Comte's own coinage — is a hy- 
brid term, partly Latin and partly Greek. Social 
statics, again, is used in a different sense from that 
of Mr. Herbert Spencer's early treatise. With Spen- 
cer, social statics refers to a future Utopian period, 
when egoism and altruism are perfectly balanced ; a 
millennial age, when "that great disturbance of hu- 
man nature, which the churches call sin," has been 
left behind. It therefore corresponds to the " abso- 
lute ethics" or "ethics for the straight man" of Mr. 
Spencer's later system — a fresh proof, if further 
proof were needed, that ethics and sociology are 
only diverse names for the same product, as produc- 
tion is carried on in the schools of empirical sociol- 
ogy and evolutionary ethics. In the light of science 
it would seem that Comte's use of the phrase is much 
better justified than Spencer's. Mechanical statics 

1 In the Manchester Guardian. 



chap. II COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 1 3 

discuss the conditions of stability in actual life, not 
in some ideal world, where the properties of things 
have been modified out of all recognition. Lastly, 
the phrase social dynamics ought in accuracy to be 
social kinetics. By rights the name dynamics covers 
the whole field of mechanics, studying the conditions 
both of stability and of movement, and thus including 
as its two branches statics and kinetics. As for the 
name mechanics, it is usually extruded by men of 
science from the field of theory, and confined to prac- 
tice. However, the words dynamics and dynamical 
are so identified in sociological usage with that half 
of the subject which deals with motion, or, in other 
words, with historical change and growth, that it does 
not seem wise to attempt to disturb the inaccurate 
but well-established phraseology of tradition. 

The later book, the Polity ; not only has a fuller 
discussion of sociology, but a greater number of 
topics or heads or subdivisions. First, there is a 
general sketch of Positivism. Secondly, there is an 
outline of the principles to be fully developed in what 
follows. Thirdly, there is an account of Social Stat- 
ics, i.e. of permanent conditions of social order ; 
very much fuller than in the Positive Philosophy, and 
therefore not merely naming or sketching in brief 
the Family, the State, and the Church or Human- 
ity, but treating the last specially at greater length, 
and adding discussions upon Language and upon 
Art. Fourthly, we have Social Dynamics, Comte's 
Philosophy of History. This had been given with 
disproportionate fulness in the early treatise ; but its 
discussion is a good deal enlarged in the later volume, 
though other points are still more enlarged. Lastly, 



14 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

there is the Polity of the future, dogmatically detailed 
upon Positivist lines. It is plain that such a pro- 
gramme affords plenty of scope for repetition and 
reiteration. Comte makes full use of his opportuni- 
ties. We must remember that Comte had already in 
view the composition of the Polity when he issued 
his Philosophy. It is characteristic of the man to 
grind his few leading ideas round and round and 
round again in his own and in his reader's mind. A 
division or a generalisation is never expounded once 
for all ; we shall meet with it again as a subdivision 
in a different section. This is a failing which leans 
to virtue's side, but its scale is positively gigantic in 
Comte. 

Along with the difference in scale, and in precision 
of semi-political or legislative detail, there is to be 
noted a difference, up to a certain degree, in the 
animating spirit. Both treatises rely upon Comte's 
hierarchy of the sciences ; both rely upon his his- 
torical law of the Three Stages ; and both of them 
are affected by his belief that the heart ought to rule 
the head, or the intellect to be the servant of the 
affections. But the last point certainly counts for 
vastly more in the Polity than in the Philosophy. 
Between the date of the two treatises the church 
of humanity, as represented by its prophet Comte, 
had developed a whole system of worship. Some 
have regarded the two stages of Comte's thinking as 
flatly contradictory of each other. It seems better 
to recognise that, at every stage, there were diverse 
currents of thought or "streams of tendency" min- 
gling in Comte ; that he was perhaps divided against 
himself, habitually inconsistent, continuously self- 



chap, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 1 5 

contradictory. Certainly it is hard to reconcile the 
view that the heart is to be master of the intellect, 
and its result, the sentimental worship of Humanity, 
with the appeal to mere phenomenal fact. Yet 
Comte and the Comtist elect are conscious of no 
self-contradiction. Both demands are merged in 
the blessed and magical word — Positive. 

What is it to be Positive? In French, the word 
may have a special history, giving it a richer connota- 
tion. In English it has no such distinctive position ; 
it is merely the opposite of negative, or sometimes of 
natural, as when we contrast positive law with the 
obligations of natural law. Perhaps a combination 
of these two senses may suggest the Comtist view, 
especially if we can light up the result with an un- 
speakable glamour of love and complacency. Comte 
prefers positive historical institutions to what he 
regards as metaphysical dreams of natural law or 
natural rights. He prefers real facts to fictitious or 
ideal fancies. Yet the fictions had their use. They 
helped to clear away the mediaeval system, in doc- 
trine and polity, when it had grown obsolete. More 
than that the spirit of the Revolution — or, as Comte 
would say, the spirit of the Reformation and of the 
Revolution — could not possibly accomplish. But 
more is now demanded. That negative service has 
been done. We must be positive. Back then to the 
facts ; if we appeal to the right facts, in the right 
spirit, we shall positively save society ; positively, we 
shall ! 

The old authorities, whose defeat Comte usually 
takes for granted, were at least three or four in 
number. There was religion ; supernatural religion ; 



1 6 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

what students call the positive religions of the world, 
claiming, many or most of them, to come by revela- 
tion. These had played their part in promoting 
human or social well-being during the theological 
stage of history, but they were long ago effete ; the 
metaphysical stage had superseded them, and it in 
turn was now yielding to the final or positive stage 
of knowledge. The other three authorities are all 
metaphysical, and on that ground are disowned by 
Comte ; metaphysics proper, the introspective method 
in psychology, and intuition. As it happened, these 
various alleged authorities had presented themselves 
in alliance to confront the assaults of modern Agnos- 
ticism ; and, as Comte believes, they had all been 
overthrown. The third, the introspective method in 
psychology, is perhaps not strictly an alleged guide 
to conduct ; but it stands in very close alliance with 
the fourth. If simple interrogation of consciousness 
teaches us truth in one great department of knowledge, 
then simple interrogation of the voice of conscience 
may well be expected to teach us duty, and guide us 
safely in action. Comte, a more thorough-going 
empiricist and phenomenalist than his English col- 
leagues, the Mills and Spencers, is resolved to have 
nothing to do with the psychology of introspection. 
Psychology is either a department of physiology, 
phrenology perhaps ; or, as he says in his later 
treatise, sociology is the true psychology, i.e. soci- 
ology gives us the one true doctrine of man. On 
the other hand, it was the earlier treatise which 
offered us sociology in lieu of ethics, — which, as we 
may say, carried its aversion to intuitionalism so far 
as to blot out of being the science which intuitional- 



chap, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING I J 

ism had so deeply infected. The later treatise rec- 
ognises that a science of morals ought to handle the 
problems of personal conduct, in the light of the 
conditions of social well-being established or defined 
by sociology. As being more complex, the discussion 
of personal duty in morals — a treatise which Comte 
never was able to compose — is placed by him later 
than sociology in his list of the sciences. 

Beyond this statement of his alleged Law of the 
Three Stages, Comte does not argue in favour of his 
agnostic background. He takes it over from his pred- 
ecessors in the business of speculation, empiricists 
and individualists of the ordinary type. Once he 
refers to Kant, telling us that Kant had had a very 
fair inkling of the biological view of human knowledge 
as a thing absolutely relative to its environment — 
being partly due to the activity of the organism, partly 
to the reaction of the environment ; the two elements 
mixing in a way that defies us to decompose them, 
and that forbids us to regard man as capable of pos- 
sessing absolute truth. But usually Comte is content 
to let history, as he understands history, tell its own 
tale. Once, mankind aspired to penetrate to the 
knowledge of causes. The race devoted itself to a 
theological interpretation of the world. First came 
Fetishism; every object in nature, every part of the 
mighty whole, was held to be alive, just as man him- 
self is alive. Unlike the writers of to-day, who gener- 
ally identify Fetishism with Animism — in the most 
approved sense of that slippery and misleading word 
— Comte has no intention of admitting that primitive 
mankind believed in spirits, temporarily or perma- 
nently connected with the Fetish. Not so ; Comte 



1 8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

regards a belief in the soul as belonging to a much 
more sophisticated state of mind than that of the 
amiable fetish worshippers, the first fathers of the 
human race. Not until the baleful shadow of meta- 
physics begins to fall upon human thought do we 
hear of souls in men, or of spirits in nature. To 
Comte, psychology is a kind of physiology ; psychical 
life is a property of the human body ; and, to the 
fetishist, psychical life was a property of the objects 
of nature. Again Comte differs from ordinary usage 
in extending the term fetish to cover any object in 
nature which might be worshipped — a river, a moun- 
tain, a star, the moon, the sun. By other writers, 
that highly ambiguous and arbitrary word is usually 
applied only to things which are or which may become 
private property. Fetishism, as understood by Comte, 
was regarded by him as the first form of religion. 
This, again, was part of the legacy to Comte of the 
Encyclopedists and their fellows. Out of Fetishism, 
according to Comte, grew Polytheism. The change 
is mainly attributed to the action of human reason. 
It came to be discovered that things which had been 
regarded as animated were really inanimate. But 
the theological delusion was not yet shaken off ; the 
human mind was not yet strong enough to go right 
on to the scientific or positivist consciousness. Instead 
of doing that, mankind invented a set of imaginary 
beings, called gods, lurking behind the phenomena of 
nature. To the gods were now attributed those activi- 
ties which observation would no longer suffer men 
to ascribe to stones or plants or unconscious natural 
forces. Next, out of Polytheism grew Monotheism. 
Here again reason had been at work; as the unity 



chap, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 1 9 

and harmony of nature was more and more dis- 
covered, it became more and more difficult — at 
length it became impossible — to interpret the world 
as an effect produced by independent or rival agencies. 
There must be one great first cause ; one great man- 
like Being. Monotheism had begun ; the last term 
in the theological development. But the develop- 
ment was to continue beyond Monotheism, and al- 
ready, unnoticed, under the dominance of the theo- 
logical stage, the germs of the metaphysical stage of 
mind were developing. Metaphysics, according to 
Comte, sees through the absurdity of belief in gods 
or in God ; reason is still active, and is very strongly 
impressed at this stage (says Comte) with the moral 
difficulties of Theism ; but, according to metaphy- 
sicians, all we have to do is to substitute abstractions 
for the discredited deities. In the metaphysical stage 
of thought we take these abstractions seriously, as if 
they could give a real and satisfying explanation of 
things ; but they are only ghosts of causes, ghosts 
of gods, ghosts of the real living body under the style 
and title of souls, — and so forth and so forth. Drugs 
produce sleep because they have a soporific virtue. 
Life is due to some mysterious intangible vital energy. 
Chief of all the abstractions is Nature. Substitute 
Nature for the monotheistic God and the feat is ac- 
complished ; the transition is made ; the first stage of 
thought has given place to the second. With the 
conception of nature grows up a crop of wild beliefs 
in natural laws — he means the jurist's natural law, 
not the physicist's — and in natural rights. These 
beliefs are powerful to destroy, powerless to create. 
But that is their use, — to clear away the rubbish and 



20 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part i 

debris of an obsolete intellectual and social order. 
Hence the reign of metaphysics must be incompara- 
bly shorter than the prevalence of the theological 
spirit. Already the new, the true, the final stage of 
thought was unfolding itself in a few rarely gifted 
minds. The one solid result of metaphysical inquiries 
consisted in the fragments of science accidentally dis- 
covered, either in antiquity or in the Middle Ages, by 
minds too finely touched for the metaphysical dreams 
which chiefly occupied them. In a sense, therefore, 
science antedated metaphysics. But more still, there 
must have been a leaven of positivism — i.e. of science 
— even in the earliest fetishist days, if human life was 
to be maintained on earth. And so we do not wonder 
to find that society was being built up, piece by piece, 
long before sociology was possible. In the days of 
fetishism the family was developed, — the most es- 
sential of all social formations. Polytheism, which 
ushered in the epoch of militarism, witnessed the 
construction of the State. At first, however, spiritual 
power and secular power were closely combined. 
Either the State was a Theocracy, in which the priests 
ruled ; or in subsequent days the military classes, 
who had assumed command of the State, kept the 
priests under control. Both of these systems yielded 
very imperfect types of the State ; yet humanity owed 
much to them. The practical wisdom of the priests, 
and, still more, the sagacious instincts of secular 
statesmanship, did a great deal to counteract the anti- 
social tendencies of a developed theology. Instead 
of dreaming away their lives in religious joys, or in 
thoughts of another world — as their creeds may have 
demanded — men were disciplined by their wise rulers 



chap, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 21 

to think of the interests of their country, and to aim 
at the public weal. Under Monotheism once more — 
i.e. under Christianity, or, as Comte calls it, " Catholi- 
cism " — a very great advance was made through the 
mediaeval separation of the spiritual and temporal 
powers. The empire of the German Caesars and the 
ecclesiastical Papacy stood over against each other in 
seemingly hostile array as competitors for the supreme 
place. Really, says Comte, the separation of theory 
from practice — for that is what it means from his 
point of view — was a decisive gain for human well- 
being. During the same epoch chivalry or defensive 
warfare formed a transition stage from the old aggres- 
sive militarism to the modern Industrialism. So much 
had already been wrought by the spirit of positivism, 
even before it had come to self-consciousness. But 
now science is fully accredited and well grown ; and 
industrialism, the definitive social order, which corre- 
sponds to science or positivism, the definitive stage of 
thought, lies all around us, albeit still in sad confusion. 
The long regency of God is at an end. The minority 
of Humanity has ceased. We are done with dreams 
of knowing the causes of things ; we are content 
henceforth to register sequences, and to calculate 
phenomena, for the practical ends of human welfare. 
Comte has appeared, and, by attending to his teaching, 
mankind now at last may enter the land of promise. 

Of course the value of this historical sketch of the 
progress of the human mind depends upon the degree 
in which it is true, and in which its truth can be 
demonstrated. It is hardly necessary to say that 
while it revealr, wide knowledge and great power of 
generalisation, it also contains many assumptions, 



22 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

and much prejudice, and not a little which is now 
proved to be false. The early history of human re- 
ligions and human institutions is still indeed extremely 
obscure. Many theories are put forward ; none can 
claim a complete victory. And yet it is not too much 
to say that Comte's neat little sketch of Fetishism, 
and its uses, and its successors, must be laid aside 
among the things which are curious but not service- 
able. However, the question specially before us at 
this moment is whether Comte's historical survey 
justifies his agnostic creed. In support of Comte 
there is one striking fact to be noticed. The field 
assigned to natural law has constantly tended to ex- 
pand; supernatural agency, even by those who believe 
in it, has been put farther and farther back, farther 
and farther off. So much Comte may certainly claim 
to have made good. But it is still matter for argu- 
ment whether this really points to the cessation of 
theological and metaphysical belief. The question 
is a metaphysical one, to be fought out on metaphysi- 
cal grounds. In his dislike and contempt for meta- 
physics, Comte offers us merely what one may call 
historical statistics of the dwindling of faith. But 
that is to postpone the question indefinitely. Till 
faith in God has died out like faith in witchcraft, 
history cannot claim to pronounce upon it a sentence 
of worthlessness. 

Or we may propose another issue. Let us consider 
Comte's appeal to science. If that works out so 
clearly and satisfactorily as to carry us unhesitatingly 
with it, then we may feel that Comte has justified 
his cavalier attitude towards those mighty allies, faith 
and reason. On the other hand, if Comte's positive 



chap, ii COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 23 

construction fails to commend itself, we shall be 
justified in " considering yet again " the old-fashioned 
guides to truth and duty, for which sociology was to 
be a substitute. 

Now, first, we must remark that Comte does not 
absolutely shut the door against faith. While he re- 
gards belief in a God as the second-last outworn 
raiment of human thought, he declines with some in- 
dignation to be called an atheist. God, say his 
disciples, may or may not exist; the question lies 
beyond the competency of human reason to settle. 
So, too, the doctrine of a soul separate from the body 
is assigned by Comte to the last outworn phase of 
thought — the metaphysical. Yet, if you call Comte 
a materialist, his facile indignation once more over- 
flows. He belongs, therefore, to the agnostic group. 
He will neither say " yes " nor " no." But he is 
filled with scorn for those who say "yes," for he is 
perfectly and dogmatically assured that we have no 
right to dogmatise. Moreover, his attitude towards 
the claims of his rivals looks very differently in dif- 
ferent sentences or paragraphs. When he denounces 
the dreams of theories that transgress the limits of 
human reason, he speaks in the tone of one who 
possesses real knowledge through the positive sci- 
ences. But, when he explains that mankind is 
abandoning inquiry into causes, it forces itself with a 
shock upon the reader's mind that the opposite is the 
case. It is knowledge that we are surrendering. It 
is reality that we are forsaking. Our predecessors 
may have failed to attain real knowledge. For argu- 
ment's sake take it, if you like, that they failed piti- 
ably. Still there is this to be said, they tried ; whereas 



24 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part I 

we, the crowning race, are to give up real knowledge, 
and to content ourselves with registering useful 
sequences. We have not awakened from a dream, 
but rather fallen from a dream into a stupor. This 
also is characteristic of the whole agnostic group. It 
is easy to write the words " limitation " or " relativity 
of knowledge " ; but is hard to work out your mean- 
ing so that this relativity or this adamantine limit 
shall not involve the abrogation and annihilation of 
knowledge. But those who despise metaphysics 
far too thoroughly to study it, will always be 
found rejoicing in scraps of metaphysical " creeds 
outworn." 

Next, we observe that, while Comte appeals to 
phenomenal fact and positive science, he does not 
place all sciences upon the same level. He has 
arranged them in a scale — ist, Mathematics (includ- 
ing Arithmetic, Algebra, Geometry, Mechanics); 2nd, 
Astronomy; 3rd, Physics (with subdivisions — Sound, 
Light, Heat, Electricity, etc.); 4th, Chemistry; 5th, 
Biology or Physiology; 6th, Sociology; to which the 
Positive Polity adds, 7th, Ethics. In the Positive 
Philosophy there is a full review of the state of know- 
ledge regarding the various branches of mathemati- 
cal and physical science at the time when Comte 
wrote. This order is regarded as the best order, the 
right order, the order chosen by the (f>povi,/j,o<;, the wise 
and well-cultured man, Auguste Comte. It is not 
simply an order of initial ease and progressive diffi- 
culty. It is mainly an order for study — roughly 
coinciding with the order of discovery — but princi- 
pally justified by the statement that each science 
presupposes the results of its predecessors, while it 



chap. II COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 2$ 

marks out for itself a new field of scientific achieve- 
ment by detecting new uniformities. Before Comte, 
it is urged, there was no science of society. Comte 
learned from biology to regard society as an organ- 
ism, profoundly related to its environment. But that 
did not establish a science of sociology. Two lumi- 
nous generalisations did so — the Law of the Three 
Stages, and the Hierarchy of the Sciences. This 
illustrates to us the intricate arrangement of material 
characteristic of Comte's redundant method. The 
Hierarchy of the Sciences includes sociology ; but 
again, the hierarchy is revealed to mankind by soci- 
ology ; and, once more, the hierarchy constitutes one- 
half the title-deeds of sociology, justifying its claim 
to be ranked with the sciences. 

It is a somewhat remarkable development of phe- 
nomenalism, this arrangement of sciences, not merely 
in sequence but in a rising scale. It recalls to mind 
the great Idealist systems of Germany, so like, and 
so unlike, Comte's philosophy. One is not surprised 
to find Spencer protesting against the ladder of know- 
ledge, — protesting that the relation between different 
sciences is not one of superiority and subordination, 
but one of equal reciprocity, each borrowing from 
each, each lending to the other. Still, if only be- 
cause, as Carlyle said, " speech is linear though char- 
acter is solid," — still, it is necessary to take sciences 
one at a time, — first one, then another ; the synthetic 
philosophy itself has a beginning, a middle, and an 
end. And probably Comte's view has better justi- 
fication than Spencer's, though there is a measure of 
truth in each. It is true that borrowing and lending 
go on between different sciences, backwards and for- 



26 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

wards, up and down ; but it is also true — and the 
truth is of greater importance — that high branches 
of science are dependent on the results of lower and 
simpler branches. In spite of the prejudices of phe- 
nomenalism, a scale of values will assert itself as we 
deal with the different branches of human knowledge. 
Of course Comte had his own explanation of the 
origin of this scale of values. It is purely subjective, 
a matter of human convenience. To take things in 
this order suits us, and therefore we rightly do so ; 
for intellectual curiosity is always to be kept in 
subordination to the claims of the affections. But 
how does it happen that human knowledge, upon 
the whole, lends obedience to the demands of the 
moral nature ? How is it that knowledge comes to 
us, imperfectly but really, in the form of a system, 
where the later parts imply the previous parts and 
carry us further on ? In other words, how comes it 
that our subjective synthesis does not distort the 
knowledge which phenomena afford, but rather brings 
out its inner meaning ? Comte is in a curious half- 
way position between phenomenalism, to which one 
fact is as good as another, and idealism, to which 
knowledge is a thing that objectively and really 
grades itself. It is a thin disguise of intellectual 
helplessness when Comte asserts that we have such 
a grouping of phenomena in our knowledge, but that 
the grouping is due merely to man's capricious regard 
for the interests of his own species. " Facts are 
chiels that winna ding." They are not so easily 
manipulated as Comte implies. 

Putting the matter in our own way, we may say 
that Comte's positive and constructive teaching 



chap. II COMTE'S LIFE AND TEACHING 2J 

has three sources of light and leading, in which it 
trusts — 

(i) The appeal to Biology. 

(2) The appeal to History. 

(3) The doctrine of Altruism. 

We shall say a few words about each in turn. 



CHAPTER III 

THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 

The " social organism " in other writers — In Comte — Idealist supple- 
ment to the biological appeal — Professor Mackenzie's statement 
of the idealist view — Intuitionalist criticism of the appeal — Comte 
uses a biological parable — Consistent phenomenalism means (if not 
evolutionism) hedonism — Comtism and hedonism two half truths 

[Note A. On Drummond's Natural Law in the Spiritual World 
— "Biological religion," according to Finlayson — Drummond ap- 
peals to biogenesis — His religion is Calvinistic, rather, or Gnostic — 
His noble zeal for continuity in knowledge] 

Biology comes next below sociology in Comte's 
scheme of the sciences. As we have seen, it is some- 
what difficult to know how far, upon Comte's own 
principles, this juxtaposition of the two sciences war- 
rants him in expecting the ideas of the lower science 
to serve as a guiding clue in the construction of the 
higher. Let it be enough to say that, whether in obe- 
dience to his own principles or without warrant from 
them, Comte has drawn a good deal from the biologi- 
cal analogy. As far back in time as the secession of 
the Roman Plebs, the parable of the " belly and the 
members " is alleged to have taught moral lessons to 
hot-headed or selfish factions. Again, in St. Paul's 
account of the Church, we are introduced to an or- 
ganism in which all the members rejoice or suffer 

28 



chap, in THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 29 

together, sympathising fully with one another. It is 
an extension of the Christian spirit which leads 
modern thinkers to apply the same image to the 
State or to civil society. The contrast has been 
tellingly drawn between St. Paul's appeal as to a 
well-known fact — "Ye are members one of another" 
— and the Greek despair of being able to name any 
authority strong enough to overrule personal selfish- 
ness. When modern thinkers call society an organ- 
ism, they say in effect, not merely to fellow-Christians, 
but to fellow-citizens or fellow-men, " We are mem- 
bers one of another;" they say it, counting on a 
response ; and they obtain not a little response, 
thanks to the spread of the Christian spirit and 
Christian ethic. Moreover, science takes up the 
keynote in such a phrase as " the physiological di- 
vision of labour," a phrase which shows us how the 
lower science is at times indebted for suggestions to 
a higher — in this instance, physiology, to the eco- 
nomic branch of the science of society — but which 
also shows us the reality and the scientific service- 
ableness of the analogy between the two fields of 
study. 

Apparently Comte himself was aware that biology 
and sociology in some respects formed a class to- 
gether, contrasting with the lower sciences. In his 
little book on Comte, Dr. Edward Caird twice over 1 
tells us that Comte recognised even in biology, much 
more in sociology, the necessity of bringing to a focus 
that esprit d' ensemble for which he pleads, and for 
explaining the parts by their place and function in 
the whole, not the whole by the co-operation of 

1 2nd edition, pp. 61, 132. 



30 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

mutually independent parts. This spirit grew on 
Comte more and more. " Humanity," he said at 
last, "is alone real; the individual is an abstraction." 
In so far as he appealed to biology for encourage- 
ment in such teaching, Comte was following biologi- 
cal clues in the new science of sociology. 

Now, if this be so, an adherent of the German 
idealism will welcome Comte's progress, such as it is. 
He will think it far better to expound human reason 
— and what he regards as a creation of human reason, 
human society — in terms of biology rather than in 
terms of mechanism, or of "matter and motion." 
Neither interpretation may be adequate, but Comte's 
will seem to the idealist much nearer the truth than 
the other. Only the idealist will lament that the 
scale of the sciences is cut off with a knife at biology. 
He thinks life a truer, richer, fuller, worthier cate- 
gory than affinity or force, or any purely physical 
conception ; but he believes there is a higher cate- 
gory still, viz. self-conscious reason. He believes 
that, while the processes of life may do a good deal 
to throw light upon the processes of reason, the pro- 
cesses of reason throw back even more light upon 
the allied yet inferior processes studied by physi- 
ology. The idealist holds that reason has gone to 
the making of all things ; that it shows a little of 
itself in the lower sciences, much of itself in the 
sciences of biology and physiology, but all of itself 
in self-consciousness — self-consciousness, which is 
the open secret of the world, and which does not 
need to be studied at second hand either in biology 
or in sociology when we can study it in itself, 
and in its workings everywhere. Good to use 



chap, in THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 3 1 

biology as a help, says the idealist; but why stop 
at biology ? * 

It is perhaps the same position in different words 
when Mr. Mackenzie tells us that his doctrine of an 
organism (as applied to the social organism) is a meta- 
physical category. The perfect realisation of unity 
in difference, the whole in all the parts, each for all, 
and all for each, is only hinted in natural organisms, 
but is achieved in the life of reason and of goodness. 
Men of science need not trouble to tell idealists of 
supposed errors in the idealist conception of an 
organism. Idealist philosophers go to science for 
hints, for rough outline sketches, for parables ; it is 
to reason they apply for final and authoritative reve- 
lations. Few animal organisms may display any 
perfect relativity of the whole to the parts, and of 
the parts to the whole. If you cut off my head I die. 
If you cut off my arm, unless you do it very clumsily, 
I do not die. The head therefore seems to be a 
necessary and integral element in the organism ; the 
arm does not. Or, again, if a lobster loses a claw 
he can grow another. I, alas ! may lose a leg or an 
arm, and still survive, but I cannot replace the miss- 
ing limb. Is the lobster the truer and worthier 
organism? It cannot do without any one part, and 
if any part goes amissing, what has been lost is 
reproduced by the remainder of the organism. Or 
an organism which, so to speak, was all heads, would 
seem to be a metaphysically perfect or beau-ideal 
organism, where every part was vitally necessary, 

1 With an interesting and characteristic modification, Professor 
Baldwin of Princeton affirms that Psychology gives us the true clue to 
the nature of society. 



32 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

because each part was implied in all the rest. The 
human organism, happily for us, does not illustrate 
the metaphysical category in this phase of perfec- 
tion. Yet the category is not irrelevant. In the 
healing of a wound physiologists recognise some- 
thing analogous to the mysterious power by which 
the lobster grows a fresh claw. Thus the parable ex- 
ists in nature, but the fulfilment is found in reason and 
in conscience. Far more fully than any members in 
one of nature's organisms, "we" — human beings, 
God's children — " are members one of another." Our 
mutual dependence is absolute ; our life, if torn as- 
under from each other, is no human life at all. 

A different criticism might be stated by one believ- 
ing less confidently than idealists do in the completed 
scale of the sciences, while attaching more distinctive 
importance than they attach to the revelations of the 
moral consciousness. Such a one would ask, Is this 
biological parable anything more than a covert 
appeal to the moral consciousness ? Is it anything 
more than a fantastic way of saying, " You ought," 
a masked transition from the " So it is " of phenome- 
nalism to the " So it ought to be " of ethics ? Reli- 
gion, at least in its historical forms, has been 
deposed ; Christianity has been scouted ; intuition has 
been laughed down ; philosophy has been told to 
vanish with the ghosts before the noontide of science. 
Yes, but how are you going to bring men under 
authority when so many authorities have been sent 
packing ? It is very convenient if you can assert the 
claim, the moral claim, of the community in the par- 
able of body and members ! This may not be a 
perfect moral authority, but it is at any rate an 



chap, in THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 33 

authority, and in the bankruptcy of the moral con- 
sciousness any authority is better than none. Nay, 
for Comte it is the very authority he wants, human 
and governmental. Yet this doctrine of the social 
organism is no pronouncement in the name of facts ; 
it is a moral dictum, picturesquely stated in terms of 
popular science. The community is doubtless part 
of the moral authority to which each man owes 
allegiance. But the parable of the social organism 
would not win the wide acceptance it does if it were 
not for the authority of conscience within, and for 
the training of conscience by the authority of the 
Christian spirit during centuries. 

We conclude then that the appeal to biology has 
done Comte a very great service. After he had cut 
away the foundation of morals he has been able to 
find a new foundation in the tacit assumption that 
individual men are bound to the service of the com- 
mon weal ; and this assumption is masked, and made 
to look like the statement of a scientific fact, by the 
process of borrowing a parable from biology. 

Of course it may be rejoined that Comte is much 
more true to his phenomenalist assumptions, and that 
he is merely appealing to fact when he uses the bio- 
logical parable. Any one, it may be said, can see that 
men are dependent upon society, and that selfishness 
leads to unhappiness, not to happiness. That, how- 
ever, suggests hedonism, and hedonism is strange 
to Comte. Hedonism represents the earlier and 
probably the more consistent working out of a phe- 
nomenalist view of human conduct ; but sociology 
represents a strong reaction from it, as from other 
manifestations of individualism. Probably it will be 



34 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

admitted to-day in most quarters that J. S. Mill failed 
logically in his generous attempt to establish the 
claims of all upon the fact of each man's personal 
interest in his own happiness. Some more recent 
sociological schools do indeed resume the appeal to 
hedonism ; but they do so — as we shall shortly note 
— in connection with a doctrine of evolution which 
was unknown to Comte, and which those who rely 
on it regard as affording a new basis for morals, a 
new rampart against the assaults of a destructive 
individualism. To unsophisticated phenomenalism, 
one fact is as good as another ; and there is no fact 
more pressing than the claims of self. It may pos- 
sibly be argued that the new doctrines of evolution 
bridle the spirit of selfishness by showing that each 
individual inherits a sort of compendium of the moral 
experience of past ages. But, at any rate, in the 
absence of evolutionary doctrine, Comte had to qual- 
ify or corrupt his phenomenalism in the interests 
of the public weal. It is not because experience 
proves society to be the true source of individual 
happiness that Comte champions society, or that he 
sings the praises of the social life. He ignores our 
specifically human experience, and assimilates man's 
life, as far as possible, to natural or animal existence. 
He will not admit that reason has disintegrated the 
purely instinctive co-operation of gregarious animals, 
so that it can never be reconstituted. And he has no 
vision of a higher fellowship, created only by the 
rational and moral nature of man, or by that glorious 
Nature whose image is borne by man alone, of all 
creatures upon earth. Comte has his psychology of 
the rational nature, — of its characteristic selfishness 



chap, in THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 35 

and its no less characteristic unselfishness ; but his 
doctrine, as we shall see, is profoundly unsatisfac- 
tory, and his appeal to biology is a counsel of despair. 
Instead of saying, " On to the fuller development of 
reason and goodness, for the cure of the ills under 
which we groan," Comte says rather, "Back to the 
life of sense, in which these ills had not yet emerged." 
Comtism ignores the idiosyncrasy of man as a ra- 
tional being ; hedonism at any rate recognises it in 
however perverted a form. We must seek to attain 
some worthier recognition of the great fact. Biology 
is indeed a parable of the moral life, but still it is only 
a parable. The resemblances are counterpoised by 
immense differences. When these differences are 
neglected an appeal to biology in the interest of 
morals becomes a piece of mere improved assumption. 
And Comte is more dependent on this appeal than 
he ever clearly admits. He is more dependent on it 
than his principles quite warrant. The only fashion 
in which Comte is able to say " You ought " is in 
the formula, " Society is an organism." Other 
sociologists have other reasons for making the appeal 
to' biology ; it stands for this in Comte. And there- 
fore this appeal in Comte is not a scientific state- 
ment of fact, but rather a rudimentary and defective 
form of the moral judgment, — valuable, no doubt, 
but valuable upon the principle which makes the 
one-eyed man king of the blind. 

Note A. On "Natural Law in the Spiritual World" 

[The appeal to biology has been traced in a dif- 
ferent quarter, in the lamented Henry Drummond's 



36 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

first and brilliantly successful book, Natural Law in 
the Spiritual World. This book was criticised in a 
pamphlet under the name of Biological Religion, by 
one less widely known, but not less deeply loved in 
life or lamented in death, Dr. Finlayson. 1 Drum- 
mond of course appeals to the sharp modern doctrine 
of biogenesis, with its denial of all forms of sponta- 
neous generation or xenogenesis ; with its assertion of 
life from life, and like from like. It is certainly curi- 
ous that an age which has taken stock so heavily in 
evolutionary speculations — and the very men of 
science who were pioneers in evolution and popular- 
isers of its results — should also have reaffirmed, on 
the ground of fresh experiments, a view of life closely 
associated with creationist doctrines. Drummond, 
for one, appeals in his early work to biological 
science, because he is a theological creationist. His 
analogy is somewhat wire-drawn; his biology is of 
the simplest, rarely going beyond the single point 
named ; when it does go further, as in discussing 
Degeneration or Parasitism, still extremely simple, 
and not very consistent with the foundation doctrine 
of biogenesis. The book really offers us Neo- 
Calvinist religion, or even Neo-Gnostic, more truly 
than biological religion ; but it shows the same con- 
tempt for metaphysics and the same blind confidence 
in empirical science which distinguish Comte and 
many lesser sceptics. Its religious teaching is often 
admirable, but the parable on which it is built mis- 
leads the author, because he supposes it to be more 
than a parable. Intellectually, the best feature in 
the book is the determination to trace continuity 

1 The late minister of Rusholme Congregational Church, Manchester. 



chap, in THE APPEAL TO BIOLOGY 37 

between different worlds of thought. This effort 
reappears in Drummond's later book, The Ascent of 
Man, of which we may have something to say here- 
after. Otherwise, the later treatise is largely an in- 
version of the previous one. It obliterates the 
theological discontinuousness between the natural 
and the spiritual man, which had been so strangely 
supported by the assertion that the laws of physical 
nature must be viewed as continuous and operative 
in all regions of experience, even the most spiritual.] 



CHAPTER IV 

THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 

In Dr. Hatch — Criticism — In Ritschl, how far Comtist — Other ap- 
peals ; to historic parallels — Example from Comte — To the whole 
tendency of history — More usual in Comte ; examples — Criticism 
— Mr. Mackenzie's criticism — Guidance to be gained from history 
is limited — Comte's varied and capricious appeals to it 

To appeal to history for guidance is a very natural 
resource on the part of those who distrust philosophy. 
It is found even among theologians who are inter- 
ested, as Comte was not, in preserving belief in God. 
Probably the appeal was never made with more 
clearness or with more confidence than by Dr. Edwin 
Hatch in his St. Giles Lecture, "From Metaphysics 
to History." 1 Dr. Hatch can find no language in 
which to express his contempt for metaphysics, or 
his confidence in modern physical science. "We 
have passed into a new atmosphere. We have 
around us, not the glamour of a splendid mist, but the 
light of day." Science has "passed from metaphys- 
ics to fact, and" has "passed thereby from doubt 
to certainty." One province remains to be liberated 
— that of theology. Let us make a similar transition 
here, "from metaphysics to history"; then, even in 
theology, we shall find solid ground below our feet. 
The history which Dr. Hatch has in view is history of 

1 Published in the Contemporary Review for June, 1889. 

38 



chap, iv THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 39 

doctrine, the history of theological beliefs. If we 
treat these in the light of the comparative method 
they will no longer be meaningless, but meaningful ; 
we may even discover that " God is not only reveal- 
ing Himself to His creatures, but also realising Him- 
self to Himself" in history. 

There is a great deal that is Comtist in this pro- 
gramme. To " abandon the search for essences and 
look only to the operation of forces " is thoroughly 
Comtist in spirit, though even " forces " is too meta- 
physical a term for Comte's taste ; he would write 
" sequences." The result contemplated, no doubt, is 
anything but Comtist ; but how immense the gulf 
between the method recommended and the results 
desired ! Either our Theistic beliefs are valid and 
defensible ; but, if so, there are other fields of know- 
ledge besides that cultivated by phenomenal science, 
and other methods of study for metempirical and 
metaphysical subjects. Or else Theism is merely a 
human delusion ; but, if so, historical science can do 
nothing to galvanise it into fresh life. The sum of 
the longest series of cyphers is still zero. In one 
thing Dr. Hatch is right. Our age is pre-eminently 
an age of historical study. Very likely our age does 
better work in dealing with the history of beliefs, 
theological or other, than in dealing directly with the 
problem of their justification. Nay, our age may 
even make its best contributions to metaphysics or 
theology at second hand in the regions of history. 
But, if so, that is the weakness of our age, not its 
strength. And, in any case, profitable treatment of 
the history of such opinions implies a belief that they 
deal with facts, not hallucinations. Few of us, 



40 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

indeed, may be so metaphysical as Dr. Hatch. A 
strange way surely of banishing metaphysics, to pro- 
pose construing God's realisation of Himself to Him- 
self! The greatest idealists, with Hegel at their 
head, could not have improved on that programme. 

Dr. Hatch appealed to the history of doctrine ; it is 
in a different sense that the modern German theolo- 
gians, to whom he stood nearest, make this appeal 
"from metaphysics to history." Ritschl and his 
school have mainly in view one race of mankind, and 
one epoch of time. They believe that, in the course 
of human history, truths have emerged and forces re- 
vealed themselves which satisfy human longings and 
lead human thought to its highest attainments. It is 
not merely history as a general survey of human de- 
velopment which they prize, but that history whose 
centre is Jesus Christ. Finding in history a revelation 
of Himself by God, they are able to honour history 
as the one true light of men. Otherwise unknown, 
God has here manifested Himself ; otherwise un- 
blessed, mankind here attains to happiness and salva- 
tion. Of course this sharply cut conception of 
revelation and its limits gives rise to very grave diffi- 
culties ; but, amid all these, the appeal to history as 
urged by Ritschl has a seriousness and a significance 
which we cannot allow to Dr. Hatch's light-hearted 
paragraphs. 

So far, there appears no kind of affinity between 
the Ritschl school and Comtism. Yet there are 
many symptoms of relationship, and we find traces of 
them even in the matter now under discussion, — 
even in relation to the appeal to history. Much of 
the significance of Ritschl's appeal to history lies in 



chap, iv THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 4 1 

the repudiation of the claim of physical science to rank 
as an authority in the spiritual life of man. Nature, 
according to Kaftan, is to be interpreted by history, 
not history by nature. As a progressive spiritual 
being, reaching his full stature under Christian influ- 
ences, man claims that he shall not ultimately be 
made subject to the forces of blind and unprogressive 
nature ; he cries out for God to rescue the historical 
gains of human culture and human faith from the de- 
structive forces of the natural world ; he finds God 
answering or anticipating his cry in Jesus Christ. 
There is nothing like this in Hatch. With him 
history scarcely differs from a new department of 
physical science. But we observe a manifest parallel 
between this Ritschlian position and Comte's subjec- 
tive synthesis or subordination of the head to the 
heart. At the same time, there are immense differ- 
ences. Justifiably or unjustifiably, the Ritschl school, 
amid all their scorn for dogmatic metaphysics, be- 
lieve that they themselves, in their own way, have 
verified faith in God. They think that they have 
saved theology from the wreck of opinions, by stating 
it as a view of the contents of historical revelation, 
and as vouched for by its correspondence with man's 
nature and needs. In Comtism the subjective or 
affectional synthesis is admittedly a piece of human 
make-believe. Objectively corresponding to it, there 
is — nothing. 

But how does Comtism itself, which has dismissed 
all interest in theology and all belief in God, make its 
own appeal to history for social guidance ? Or in 
what different ways may such an appeal be made, 
purely in the interests of society ? 



42 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

The simplest view that can be taken is that which 
regards history as " philosophy teaching by ex- 
amples." This view has been eagerly pressed upon 
our generation by one of its most brilliant teachers, 
Sir J. R. Seeley, though with a special reference to 
politics in the stricter sense, rather than to what we 
distinguish as social problems. Political history, ac- 
cording to Seeley, gives us the politics of the past, 
while present-day politics are, to the statesman of wide 
views, history in the making. All manner of experi- 
ments in living, some of them successful and others 
unsuccessful, are recorded in the book of history. 
We moderns, with so immense a volume to study, 
ought to be safeguarded against many errors; and 
we ought to find ourselves in possession of many 
pieces of practical wisdom, not as discoverers but 
as heirs. 

Now Comte sometimes falls back upon the teach- 
ing of history in this simple and obvious sense. For 
example, he demands that the modern nation state 
should be broken up, under the positivist regime of 
the future, into fragments not much greater than the 
city states of antiquity. He allots to each a popula- 
tion of from one to three millions, the population of a 
great city, or of a canton or province of moderate 
dimensions. And he gives as his reason the teaching 
of experience, which is said to show that tyranny in- 
variably sets in when larger aggregates are massed 
together in one political organisation. The assertion 
perhaps may startle us, but, true or false, it is an 
appeal to history, and an appeal to history in the 
obvious sense, in which history is regarded as a col- 
lection of examples or of experiments in living. 



chap, iv THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 43 

Oftener, however, Comte treats history in a differ- 
ent fashion. He would agree with J. S. Mill, 1 that, 
in contrast with the physical sciences, history dis- 
closes a law, not of repetition, but of continuous 
progressive development. Mill is careful to guard 
himself against making any assumption in this defini- 
tion as to the moral value of one stage in history 
when compared with another. Progress in the moral 
sense he does not affirm ; he affirms merely the 
technical law that the curve which describes the 
course of history never returns upon itself. This 
belief is one of the characteristic differences between 
the East and the West and between antiquity and the 
modern world. The whole of oriental mankind, with 
all its sages and all its faiths, believes in the doctrine 
that history repeats itself. It is part of the burden 
of the bitter book of Ecclesiastes in Old Testament 
Scripture ; after immense labour, we find ourselves 
again exactly where we stood long ago. Even in the 
West, the same doctrine was largely held in classical 
times. Perhaps in the modern West — in the Chris- 
tian or semi-Christian West — we too easily make the 
transition from asserting progress in the intellectual 
sense, as a continuous evolution of change from 
change, novelty from novelty, to asserting progress 
in the moral sense, as continuous improvement. Per- 
sonally, no doubt, Mill himself believed in moral 
progress as firmly as in continuous historical change. 
And Comte believed both — the intellectual no less 
than the moral : " as if," he cries, " history ever 
repeated itself." But, if history does not repeat 
itself, the past cannot furnish examples to the present. 

1 In his Logic, and elsewhere. 



44 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

If we are to learn from the past it must be mainly in 
some other way. 

Shall we say then that we are to ascertain from 
historical study which causes are gaining and which 
declining ? And thereafter are we to shout with the 
biggest crowd ? Is the teaching of history to be a 
grandiose contribution to our study of the question 
which way the cat jumps ? Comte's Law of the 
Three Stages — an alleged continuous evolution in 
the history of the past — may be so interpreted ; it 
may be taken as a warning not to commit ourselves 
to modes of belief which are plainly growing obso- 
lete. And it may be urged that, under due restric- 
tions, there is high wisdom, not ignoble policy, in 
bowing to the declared and inevitable forces of his- 
tory. Burke has given classical utterance to this 
position in well-known words. " If a great change 
is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men 
will be fitted to it ; the general opinions and feelings 
will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will 
forward it, and then they who persist in opposing 
this mighty current in human affairs will appear 
rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself than 
the mere designs of men." It is this master current 
of tendency which we are to think of as the Zeitgeist. 
The name is not to be profaned, as one may say, by 
applying it to every little ripple upon the surface of 
events. Mr. Disraeli, presenting himself before the 
students of Glasgow University as a wise and good 
old man, felt all his wonted dramatic relish of the 
game of life in his new part of Lord Rector, when 
he told his young hearers that they must clearly un- 
derstand the spirit of their age ; perhaps they would 



chap, iv THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 45 

feel themselves called to serve it, perhaps to thwart 
it; but in any case it must be understood. Such 
counsels assume that we mean by the Zeitgeist paltry 
and sectional movements of mind. But if we define 
the Zeitgeist in a limited and honorific sense, resist- 
ance to the master principle of an age comes peril- 
ously near to fighting against God. 

In this sense some younger students of sociology 
have deliberately suggested that one ought to learn 
from history in what line things are moving, and 
then to help the movement with all one's powers. 

But here very grave difficulties suggest themselves. 
If the unconscious reason of things knows in which 
direction to move, presumably it also knows where 
to stop, which is no less important. When the first 
railway tubular bridges were erected — the Britannia 
Bridge over the Menai Straits, the Victoria Bridge at 
Montreal — they were made much heavier than has 
been found necessary in the light of fuller knowledge. 
What should we say of the wiseacre who proposed to 
carry out the principle of lightening railway bridges 
by constructing them of lace or gossamer ? In ma- 
terial affairs such proposals are never made. One 
glance would show their absurdity. But as mankind, 
especially in an age of prevailing agnosticism, stum- 
ble hither and thither in search of social guidance, 
no absurdity is too crude to find supporters ; and 
many a tendency which was good within limits is 
urged upon us without any limit as the plain teach- 
ing of history. We have recently emerged, or are 
emerging, from a period of emancipating legislation, 
in which unwise or obsolete laws have been abolished, 
and individual freedom has grown wider. The ten- 



46 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

dency was doubtless good within limits ; but does 
this fact constitute any presumption whatever in 
favour of the anarchist, revolutionary or philosophi- 
cal, who bids us entirely abolish organised govern- 
ment, and promises in return a golden age of perfect 
happiness ? The mere fact that a policy was wise 
or was inevitable up till now is no proof that it ought 
to be further persevered in. The surgeon may have 
removed first a finger, then the hand, then the fore- 
arm, as he found gangrene appearing and reappear- 
ing ; but that is no reason whatever for operating at 
the shoulder if the upper arm is healthy. 

Again, we may quote Mr. Mackenzie's statement 
of the objections to the policy under discussion, — 
the policy of pushing on along the lines where nature 
or history has shown us the way. If we could be 
certain of distinguishing the master tendency of an 
age from the crowd of rival tendencies in which it is 
all but lost, then history might be a sufficient guide. 
But too often, says Mr. Mackenzie, reflection becomes 
conscious of a social maxim only when the maxim is 
overripe, when it is ceasing to be healthy, or even to 
be completely alive. And so the conscientious stu- 
dent is apt to prolong the tendencies of the recent 
past rather than to detect the true needs of the pres- 
ent or the tendencies of the immediate future. He 
exhibits the weakness of the doctrinaire. The prac- 
tical man, who is in touch with reality, though only 
half conscious of the principles and reasons why his 
policy is the right one, is more truly scientific than 
his pretentious critic in the arm-chair. When all 
men contribute to build a prophet's tomb, one may 
shrewdly conjecture that his message is no longer 



chap, iv THE APPEAL TO HISTORY 47 

piercing and discomforting the conscience of the age. 
When impracticable politicians form a league for the 
defence, not of property only, but of liberty, one may 
fairly conclude that liberty is in no special danger, 
but that other interests of the commonwealth, not less 
vital to it, had best be looked to. 

It would appear, then, that history cannot guide 
us very securely. It cannot guide us by quoting par- 
allels from its repertory, for it is very hard to say 
what is a parallel ; and it cannot guide us by disclosing 
what is the master tendency of the present age, for 
such tendencies are seldom recognised in time. If 
history makes us wise, our wisdom arrives too gener- 
ally after the event. Nevertheless, the study of his- 
tory will be more and more imperative on all those 
who wish to counsel their fellows. It is mere waste 
of faculty to ignore the experience of the past, so far 
as that experience is available. Historical culture 
will give a man breadth of view. It will lead him to 
distrust sweeping generalisations and a priori formu- 
las. It will teach him that every institution and 
method is relative to the social state of those by 
whom it is practised. But he who is to lead men 
strongly must draw wisdom from some other and 
higher source. History can give secondary elements 
of guidance ; primary elements it cannot give. And 
there will always be the danger which that austerest 
of libre penseurs Mr. John Morley has emphasised, 
the danger that the historic method may justify any- 
thing in its own time, everything in its own place, 
and may relegate to limbo the distinction between 
right and wrong. Right and wrong — history illus- 
trates that great polar contrast, but cannot fully 



48 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

teach it; yet after all is not that the beginning of 
wisdom ? And is it not very nearly the end of wis- 
dom too ? 

A last word must be added upon Comte's own use 
of the appeal to history, out of which so much of his 
sociological writing is composed. On the whole, he 
seems to owe a smaller definite debt to history than 
to biology. Sometimes he appeals to examples, as in 
the case quoted, when he refers tyranny to the undue 
size of the state. Sometimes he appeals to the past 
stream of tendency, as in his great generalisation of the 
three stages. Sometimes again he cuts right across 
the stream of manifest tendency ; he surely does this 
in demanding that the large and organic modern state 
should be divided up into fragments ; and in general 
no charge would seem to be more clearly made out 
than that Comte scarcely tries to shows us his polity 
for the future growing out of the life of the past. 
Sometimes he appeals to a historical phenomenon, 
like the division of the spiritual and secular powers, 
which has struck his fancy. In such a case history 
is like a great magazine of wares, and Comte is like 
a purchaser strolling through it, who puts down upon 
his list of household requirements — and Comte is 
catering for the household of humanity — anything 
which pleases his own taste. History is here the 
source of suggestions, and, as Comte has much his- 
torical learning, he has a wealth of suggestions at his 
command ; but history to him is certainly not a ruler 
or a judge. On the whole, Comte practises the ap- 
peal to history with very little seriousness. The pre- 
dominant partner in his lawgiving is the subjectivity 
of Auguste Comte. 



CHAPTER V 

THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 

A fragment of ethics — On a psychological basis — Opposes psychologi- 
cal hedonism — Healthily, but incompetently — Fitzjames Ste- 
phen's objection to it ; we cannot alter nature's forces! — That is 
good determinism but bad morals — Ethically, is a new conception 
of virtue — Scientifically worthless [Mr. Baldwin] — "Balance" is 
preferred to altruism by Butler at times — By Spencer — Criticism 

A third practical or moral authority is found by 
Comte in the doctrine of Altruism. Vivre pour 
autrui is to be our constant inspiration and our shin- 
ing goal. This is really a fragment of that ethical 
portion of his system which Comte did not live to 
work out. The definition of Altruism is never 
formulated ; it is never supported in argument ; it is 
merely taken for granted. None the less it exerts an 
immense influence in Comte's own system, and has 
spread from it far and wide. Innumerable writers, 
Christian as well as non-Christian, have come to em- 
ploy the term " Altruism " as a synonym for good- 
ness. Such assumptions demand our scrutiny. 

The doctrine has at least two aspects, a psychologi- 
cal and an ethical. Psychologically, it is assumed 
that human motives fall into two classes ; one class 
terminating on the self, and seeking one's own pri- 
vate good ; the second class terminating upon others, 
e 49 



50 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

and seeking their good. It is further assumed that 
the division of motives into these two classes is exact 
and exhaustive. The two classes in question nowhere 
overlap, and there is no third class of motives. Every 
action must be done with a view either to our own 
good or to the good of another, or some others, or all 
others. A further assumption is noteworthy, both 
psychologically and ethically. It is assumed that we 
are able, if we like, to encourage one class of motives 
and multiply the actions which proceed from it, to 
discourage the other class of motives, and to weed 
out or gradually exterminate the actions to which 
it gives rise. And, finally, there is the ethical as- 
sumption, that egoistic actions are bad en masse, and 
altruistic actions ethically good, so that plainly we 
ought to encourage altruism, and do our best to put 
down egoism. 

Psychologically, this doctrine involves a notable 
break with the phenomenalist ethics of the past. 
Those systems had almost all been established upon 
psychological hedonism, on the assertion that man 
necessarily seeks his own pleasure, and cannot possi- 
bly, in any action, seek for any other end besides his 
own pleasure. Man, it was conceived, may be mis- 
informed as to the best means of securing the given 
end, and therefore there is still room for ethical 
science as a body of prudential maxims ; it is still 
possible to say to man, hopelessly and incurably 
selfish as he is, " you ought " to do this or that ; 
although upon such a view "you ought" simply 
means, This will give you the greatest happiness in 
the long run. Or hedonism might make room for 
ethics (of a sort) in a different fashion. The moral 



CHAr. v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 5 1 

fellowship of human society might be regarded as a 
mutual insurance office, in which every one surren- 
dered small fragments of present happiness in return 
for a guarantee against great contingent unhappiness 
in the future. Or by a sort of generous confusion 
the inference might be urged on men that, as each 
wants his own happiness, we must all labour for the 
happiness of all. But the psychological background 
of these various pieces of special pleading was the 
assertion that, first and last, each man seeks, and 
must seek, his own pleasure. The assertion can at 
times be made to appear almost self-evident, though 
a few minutes' handling by a skilled cross-examiner * 
will make it look very foolish indeed. 

From that psychology to Comte's psychology, from 
old-fashioned phenomenalism to new-fashioned posi- 
tivism, is a somewhat startling change. Shall we not 
welcome it as a change in the right direction ? Cer- 
tainly a less libellous account of human nature is given 
when we are told that it is composed of a group of 
selfish and a group of unselfish motives, than when 
the old view is reiterated, according to which human 
nature is root and branch, first and last, by eternal 
necessity, selfish and only selfish. But we must still 
inquire whether Comte's amended statement will pass 
muster scientifically, and, in the first place, psycho- 
logically. Now, Comte has no belief in a science of 
psychology. Psychology ought either to fall back 
upon physiology and phrenology, or to merge itself 
in sociology. Taken by itself, Comte regards it as 
a pseudo-science. But the neglected beauty has a 
capital opportunity for punishing the erring swain 

1 Cf. Prof. Sorley's Ethics of lYaturalism, pp. 23, 24. 



52 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

when Comte begins to talk psychology, for he talks 
nonsense. One may be confident of support from 
modern psychology in asserting that every action, 
however altruistic, is yet in some sense egoistic. It 
is my action. I should not have made the motive 
mine, it would not have moved me, unless I had 
found myself in its results. Mere altruism is mere 
irrelevance, the action of a lunatic, not of a sane man. 
Old-fashioned empiricism was right in looking for a 
personal motive in each action, though gravely in the 
wrong when it called that personal motive, uniformly 
and monotonously, by the name of pleasure. But 
again, with scarcely less confidence, one may assert 
that even the most egoistic actions are, in a sense, 
altruistic. Man is so radically social that his sins no 
less than his virtues are stamped with the signet of 
his nature. He sins socially. If he does not serve 
others he uses up others in his own service. Nay, 
even the cynic is only a social being in a pet. He 
retains the hope that some one is watching him. 
Diogenes, basking in his tub, has an exquisite pleas- 
ure in requesting the great Alexander to stand out 
of the light. Outwardly withdrawn from society, he 
is inwardly dependent on it; for admiration, or for 
criticism, but at any rate for notice. Of course, 
Comtists may rejoin that they mean to allow 
for all this. But does their formulation of the 
case satisfy the demands of science ? Surely 
Comte, of all men, will not maintain that scientific 
accuracy is superfluous, or that conduct can be 
safely guided in the light of slovenly and inaccurate 
thinking i 

A second criticism is offered by Sir J. Fitzjames 



chap, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 53 

Stephen in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity} Justice 
Stephen, like his brother Mr. Leslie Stephen, is a 
very severe critic of the weakness of Comte. He 
protests especially against a further assumption which 
we noticed in passing, the assumption that it is pos- 
sible, by careful effort, to readjust the balance of 
egoism and altruism in human nature. According to 
Stephen, such a change lies as far beyond our power 
as a change in gravitation or magnetism, or any of 
the forces of nature. Sir Fitzjames Stephen does 
not (here at least) pin his faith to the old selfish 
psychology of hedonism. Allowing the assumption 
to pass, that there are a certain number of unselfish 
promptings in the nature of mankind, or of any given 
individual, he assumes that (like the elect under the 
scheme of Calvinism) they can neither be increased 
nor diminished in number. The criticism, advanced 
as it is by a determinist, is a very awkward criticism 
for his fellow-determinists to meet. Speaking as an 
impenitent freewiller, one admires this pretty quarrel 
between the forces of the enemy. Stephen appears 
to be the more logical or consistent determinist, while 
he is certainly the more impracticable and the more 
hopeless guide of human conduct. Put in so naked 
and outrageous a shape, determinism must repel all 
who love goodness better than they love paradox. 
Comte' s determinism is disguised or kept in the back- 
ground. He points out that human agency can do 
absolutely nothing to modify astronomical laws, but 
that, as we ascend the scale of the sciences, we see 
physical and chemical forces yielding more and more 
to human manipulation, until finally, arrived at soci- 

1 p. 1 10. 



54 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

ology, we may well expect " the human providence " 
to prove itself nearly omnipotent. Stripped of its 
Comtist language, all this is true, but it is a truth 
incompatible with thoroughgoing phenomenalism. 
Just because man can modify nature, he can more 
profoundly modify himself. Just because he is not 
a passive stage, upon which the feelings fight out 
their battle and settle his destiny for him ; just be- 
cause "man is man, and master of his fate," he puts 
his mark upon the world in which he lives, and makes 
it his world. 

We may now leave the psychological aspects of 
the doctrine of altruism, and consider its ethical 
aspects. It has been argued that the sharp contrast 
between egoistic and altruistic actions or motives is 
vicious psychology ; and while we have agreed with 
Comte against Stephen that the forces of human 
nature are capable of being profoundly modified, we 
were sceptical as to the possibility of harmonising 
this fact with the principles of determinism. It re- 
mains to discuss the ethical significance and trust- 
worthiness of the altruistic ideal. 

Its significance in Comte's system is plain enough. 
It furnishes him with a fresh definition of virtue, as 
the appeal to biology furnished him with a fresh 
definition of duty. Less authoritative than the doc- 
trine of the social organism, the doctrine of altruism 
appeals to man's moral nature from a different side. 
To live for self is alaxpov ; to live for others is kcl\ov 
fcayaOov. Thus there is a special appeal to motive in 
this new definition. Perhaps, however, it is best 
understood as a deliberate rejection of duty to God 
or to any transcendent standard of worth. Virtue 



chap, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 55 

shall be only barely mutual help between man and 
man. Altruism accordingly is the religion of human- 
ity itself, considered as a law of conduct between in- 
dividual and individual. The state is not mentioned ; 
society is not formally invoked ; but we are bidden live 
for others. It is easy to see that this doctrine corre- 
sponds to a part, an element, an aspect of human good- 
ness. With Comte, however, it stands for the whole. 

The doctrine finds a response in human nature and 
the human heart. For, whether recognised or ignored, 
the moral nature of man is a constant factor in the 
promulgation and the acceptance of ethical doctrines, 
healthy or morbid. Conscience is always with us ; it 
is always more or less active, more or less influential ; 
and it sees something in " altruism." But, as a formal 
and exhaustive definition of virtue, altruism claims to 
stand for everything. And such a claim must be 
resolutely repelled. If " altruism " were as clearly 
a psychological fact as it is (we believe) a psycho- 
logical chimaera, yet, as a contribution to the science 
of ethics, it must fail. 1 

Badness is preferring myself to my neighbour; 
goodness is preferring my neighbour at the sacrifice 
of myself. Yes, but what is that which it is morally 
good to bestow upon others ? Surely not the particu- 
lar sensuous pleasure which I am forbidden to grasp 
hungrily on my own account ? If a man who drinks 
wine or beer in moderation gives up his own beer 
or wine that he may add it to the portion of his 
neighbour, and allow the latter to indulge a taste for 

1 Professor Baldwin {Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental 
Development) seems to explode the contrast of egoism and altruism 
psychologically, and yet to take it for granted in ethics. 



56 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

drinking immoderately, that is highly altruistic be- 
haviour, but it is not virtuous. Indulgence may be as 
altruistic as any conduct whatever, yet indulgence is 
as vicious as any conduct whatever. 

We need not wonder, therefore, if a further step is 
taken in criticism of such positions as Comte's. Those 
who have discovered that we may sometimes do wrong 
in fostering the pleasure of others naturally go on to 
ask whether it may not be wrong to drop some of our 
own pleasures, or, at any rate, to drop some of our 
own rights ? Thus, in place of Comte's one-sided 
commendation of the service of others, we are asked 
to accept, as the true ethical ideal, a doctrine of 
balance between the claims of others and personal 
claims. This conception — alternating, it is true, with 
other conceptions — is found as far back as Bishop 
Butler. Butler has no very clear doctrine of the con- 
tents of the moral ideal. That was not the question 
which mainly interested him. When he had said 
" Obey conscience," he thought he had given the 
main instruction required of him as a moralist. Still, 
the other question cannot be suppressed. Reason- 
able men must ask, " Granted that we are to obey 
conscience, what is the general line of its commands ? 
What is the unifying principle of its various utter- 
ances ? Surely it is incredible that such a principle 
should be entirely lacking, and scarcely less so that 
the principle of goodness should be inscrutable to a 
reverent human inquiry ! " Butler deals with this 
further question, but he does so informally in a series 
of not easily reconcilable obiter dicta?- Sometimes 

1 Cf. Dr. T. B. Kilpatrick's Introduction to Butler's Three Sermons 
on Human Nature* 



chap, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 57 

it seems as if benevolence were the master principle 
of human conduct. In such passages Butler takes 
his stand, where Comte afterwards rallied, with the 
prophets of altruism. Sometimes, again, Butler seems 
to speak as if conscience guided us just where rational 
self-love would conduct us were it but sufficiently far- 
seeing. In such words Butler condescends to the 
cant, not of our century, but of his own, though he 
does so with manifest uneasiness, and with a bad 
grace. But, perhaps most frequently, he anticipates 
Herbert Spencer in pleading for a balance between 
egoism and altruism. If we must define the principle 
underlying good conduct, why, we find there are two 
ultimate principles. At the back of our moral nature 
there is, if not an irreducible multitude of special com- 
mands, yet an irreducible dualism — a pair of regnant 
principles, and the line dividing them must be drawn 
by a sort of practical tact. Theory is helpless to reach 
past this " dual control." 

It is strange to find this doctrine of balance, this 
glorifying of compromise, renewed by Herbert Spencer 
— the second great name in the annals of sociology, 
the inheritor of Comte's problems and Comte's vocab- 
ulary. He also assumes the psychological legitimacy 
of the contrast between " Egoism " and " Altruism " ; 
but altruism does not rank with him as a compend of 
all the virtues. It is only one half of virtue, though 
possibly, in the language of children, " the biggest 
half." " 

Here again, as formerly, we have to ask, Which is 
the juster development of the view in question? If 
we accept altruism as a conception which is psycho- 
logically valid and ethically important; ought we, like 



58 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

Comte, to press it as hard as we can, or rather, like 
Spencer, to urge that altruism is good only when 
balanced by a judicious regard to our own egoistic 
rights ? Perhaps the latter view has more of the 
remnants of wisdom in it. But the truth is, both 
views are impracticable ; Spencer's no less than 
Comte's ; a doctrine of balance no less than a doc- 
trine which ignores self. The double-minded man is, 
and remains, unstable. It is impossible to serve two 
masters. A true moral analysis must recognise some- 
thing higher in the lowliest duty, and in the common- 
est act of kindness, than private convenience, whether 
that of ego or alter. " One person I have to make 
good — myself. My duty to my neighbour is much 
more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make 
him happy — if I may." 1 Yes indeed ; but, in making 
my neighbour happy, I make myself good; or, if I 
fail to make myself good, I shall not long make my 
neighbour happy. Both are duties ; or rather both 
are aspects of the good life, in whose unity they are 
merged. And in both alike there is a reference to 
something higher, — call it duty ; call it God's will. 
In faithfulness to one's own moral vocation, social 
and spiritual — in faithfulness to " my station and its 
duties," primarily and literally in the kingdom of 
Great Britain, but, by ultimate analysis, in that better 
kingdom which cannot be moved, — one is delivered 
from the extravagances of altruism, and from the 
imbecilities of compromise, into the very peace of 
God. 

Seeing that men are quite sufficiently selfish, Comte's 
rhetoric in praise of altruism has probably done little 

1 R. L. Stevenson, A Christmas Sermon. 



chap, v THE DOCTRINE OF ALTRUISM 59 

harm. As rhetoric, it is passable ; as a rough piece 
of popular pleading, it will serve. But it is wholly 
lacking in the scientific quality which we were prom- 
ised. In other words, it is destitute of exactness, or, 
one might even say, of truth. 



CHAPTER VI 

comte's lawgiving 

Its principles — The separation of the temporal and spiritual powers — 
Political character of Comte's sociology — Details — Summary 

It is not possible for us to give a detailed sketch 
of the Positive Polity. One can only notice in the 
briefest fashion how the superstructure answers to 
the foundation laid, or how the threads that have 
caught our attention are intertwined in the pattern of 
the finished fabric. 

We have noted already the following points : the 
law of the three stages, or the alleged movement 
from superstition to science ; the movement from 
militarism to industrialism ; the separation of the 
spiritual and the temporal powers ; and the restric- 
tion placed on the size of states. 

The third of these may need a word or two of 
explanation or comment. Under Positivism the 
separation of the spiritual and temporal powers is 
very much a separation between men of theory and 
men of action. By means of such a separation each 
class is to develop its own especial excellences, and the 
theories will be disinterested, while the practice will 
be — what ? it is hard to say, perhaps more perfectly 
expert. Surely if any proposal deserves Comte's 

60 



chap, vi COMTE'S LAWGIVING 6 1 

favourite reproach of " pedantry " this proposal 
deserves to be so stigmatised. It is a singular 
example of his fondness for " Catholicism minus 
Christianity." The director of conscience is to be 
made supreme in the whole life of Positivism. 

The only general observation that need be added 
is upon the name of Polity. Yes, it is indeed a 
scheme of politics that Comte has given us. There 
is no contrast left between the organised life of 
society and its more strictly sociological aspects as a 
natural growth. May we not say with Mill that the 
natural tendency of things is simply set aside ? That 
no serious effort is made to show that the predicted 
future has its roots in the past ? May we not repeat 
our previous statement that the predominant partner 
in the Polity is neither scientific biology nor scientific 
history, but the wilful will of Auguste Comte ? 

Some of the details of Comte's scheme may now be 
run over. 

The business of government is to be assigned to a 
triumvirate of bankers, who are to act as dictators, 
after consultation with the "supreme pontiff," or 
head of the spiritual power for all mankind. No 
more is to be heard of popular rights, they are a 
metaphysical figment. Henceforth men are to speak 
only of duties. The dictators will accordingly name 
their own successors. Limitations on the powers of 
the dictators will nevertheless exist. First, there will 
be absolutely free criticism, at the risk of religious 
excommunication, or boycott, at the bidding of the 
priests. Secondly, the priests will act as a counter- 
poise; or rather the spiritual power will do so, 



62 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

composed of the priests plus the women plus the 
"proletariate." 

The clergy are to be intellectual and moral experts, 
living on salaries — small salaries. As we know 
already, they are to be debarred from political power 
and from business activity. The intellectual training 
of youth is to be entrusted to them, and also medical 
practice. They are above all things to beware of 
specialism. It has been remarked that Comte is 
almost as much opposed to specialist "pedantry" 
as to metaphysics. The great champion of scientific 
certainty is becoming more and more jealous of mere 
knowledge. Utility is to be everywhere kept in view. 
Priests are to " direct " consciences by counsel, not 
by force. It will be remembered that they may 
sometimes advise the dictators, and that, where 
necessary, they are to oppose them. The tremendous 
weapon of excommunication is in the priests' hands. 

Business is to be carried on by captains of industry, 
directing proletaries. But capitalists who have had 
the benefit of positivist training in youth, and who 
walk all their days in the fear and love of the " spir- 
itual power " are sure to regard their position mainly 
as a social function, and to seek for no profits be- 
yond a reasonable salary or " living wage." If nec- 
essary, strikes and lock-outs may still be resorted to ; 
but such an emergency can seldom or never arise, 
under the fostering care of a wise priesthood. Every 
man is to be regarded as doing social service by his 
work. No mere " cash nexus " is to hold society to- 
gether. As with one's professional attendant, so with 
the tradesman or artizan whom one employs, one is 
to feel that he has earned a debt of friendship. On 



chap, vi COMTE'S LAWGIVING 63 

this point Comte's teaching is surely large-hearted and 
nobly wise. 

Positivist education, especially as carried on by 
mothers, will be moral even more than intellectual. 
And afterwards, the influence of the priesthood, of 
public opinion, of the boycott, and of some other in- 
stitutions of positivist religion, will help altruism to 
gain the mastery. 

Religion consists chiefly in prayer, offered morning, 
noon, and night, and addressed to humanity, especially 
as represented by one's female relatives — mother, 
wife, and daughter. If any one is lacking in the 
second or third of these, or if any one's wife or daugh- 
ter is inadequate to the role of representing humanity, 
one may substitute other ladies in one's mind. Hu- 
manity consists of the good alone — the good of the 
past, the present, and the future — along with those 
races of the lower animals which, being specially ser- 
viceable to mankind, are " incorporated in humanity." 
A calendar of saints' days helps to keep the great 
names of the past in remembrance. For one's own 
part, one may look forward to something of a similar 
" subjective " immortality. Along with humanity, the 
" great being," the earth may be worshipped as the 
"great fetish," and space as the "great medium" — 
together constituting a Positivist Trinity. Paris will 
be the spiritual capital of humanity. Auguste Comte 
is the first pontiff of the new and definitive form of 
religion, — a distinction which is no more than fitting 
in the case of one who combined in his own person 
the merits of " Aristotle and St. Paul." — Comte ad- 
mired Aristotle as heartily as he disliked Plato, and 
he went far beyond Tubingen itself in styling St. 



64 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD parti 

Paul " the real founder of Catholicism," i.e. of Chris- 
tianity. 

He not only fixed all these matters, he fixed innu- 
merable others. Every man of business was to retire 
at the age of sixty-three, spending the remainder of 
his days in advising his son how to carry on the 
business. Every labourer was to own the house he 
lived in. Every house was to contain seven rooms 
— no more, no less. The labourer's salary was to be 
ioo francs for a month of twenty-eight days, or an 
equivalent calculated in piece wages. Every treatise 
was to contain seven chapters, each divided into 
three parts, each part subdivided into seven sections. 
Every poem was to contain thirteen cantos, thirteen 
being another of Comte's sacred numbers. 

But, Qiiousque tandem f Have we not had enough 
of this version of scientific sociology ? In point of 
fact, we find ourselves, under Comte's guidance, in a 
world of caprice. Biology gives him a parable of 
moral truth, not a law ; history offers suggestions to 
the philosopher, but does not control his judgment ; 
the ideal of altruism, of which he is the prophet, is 
an unproved and unsafe assumption. A brilliant and 
erratic man, he rode his hobbies hard, and threw the 
reins upon the neck of his fancy as he approached 
the details of conduct. If science is definite, meas- 
ured, certain in its utterances, then Comte, in spite 
of his aspirations, is no true scientific leader for the 
human race. 



PART II 

SIMPLE EVOLUTIONISM — SPENCER, STEPHEN 



CHAPTER VII 

DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN CONCEPTIONS OF 
EVOLUTION DARWIN 

Evolution came as a surprise — Darwin deals with biology — With 
species only — Taking " Struggle " from Malthus, he perceives in it 
(Natural) "Selection" — A true cause, but minute; an immensely 
slow process — Compare the replies to Malthus — Sexual Selection 
accelerating — Or Use-Inheritance — But too much Lamarck, mak- 
ing variation not " casual," but purposeful, would render unneces- 
sary the "Selective" action of "Nature" — Recent doubts as to 
use-inheritance 

The appeal to biology, so far as it was formulated 
by Comte in the interests of social science, did not 
seem to possess any great significance. The im- 
mense rise in importance that was to accrue to 
biology from the evolutionary theories of this age 
was hidden even from the best minds of the preced- 
ing age. Even Hegel speaks scornfully of the fool- 
ishness of trying to read the purely ideal evolution, 
described in his system, as a process in time; but 
those who feel his influence most strongly to-day 
have generally accepted the identification. Comte 
goes further still. He expressly names hypotheses 
f 65 



66 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

regarding the origin of species among the wasteful 
and unprofitable inquiries which the human provi- 
dence will discourage and put down. So unfit are 
even the learned to play the part of providence. So 
liable are they to misjudge doctrines which, even if 
destined at last to be regarded as one-sided and more 
or less fallacious, have yet shown themselves im- 
mensely fruitful in suggestions bearing upon every 
branch of human knowledge. It is now admitted by 
able adherents of Comte's system 1 that the doctrine 
of evolution supplies a background or basis for Comte's 
unification of knowledge. In such a statement Spen- 
cer's form of evolutionary doctrine seems to be most 
directly contemplated, and Spencer is perhaps the 
least thoroughly biological of all the evolutionary 
thinkers, whether moralists or sociologists, whom we 
shall have to pass in review. Yet the great move- 
ment of our day was in connection with a biological 
doctrine which Spencer will certainly not repudiate. 
And it falls to us rather to argue for a difference 
than for a kinship between Spencer and Darwin. 
The kinship is claimed, asserted, conceded. 2 We do 
not deny it; but we believe that the differences 
reach deep down. Before we go further we must 
take a hurried view of evolution as conceived by 
both these influential writers — and first, as conceived 
by Darwin. 

Darwin's problem, vast as it was, and bold as was 

1 e.g. Mr. J. C. Oliphant in Chambers's Encyclopedia, 9th edition. 

2 Mr. C. W. Williams, of whom Mr. Spencer complains, certainly 
seems to underrate Spencer's originality (in comparison with Darwin) 
upon p. 2 of his Evolutional Ethics ; but he makes concessions on the 
other side upon p. 28. Our desire is to show that the two great men 
.moved on different lines. 



chap, vii EVOLUTION IN DARWIN 6/ 

the effort required to deal with it, was strictly limited. 
It lay within the world of organic life. It sought to 
account for the origin of distinct species among plants 
and animals. Organic evolution, as taught by Dar- 
win, means, one takes it, the evolution of organisms, 
a doctrine of evolution versus (special) creation as 
accounting for species, though the phrase organic evo- 
lution is sometimes perhaps used by other writers 1 
in a wider, or vaguer, or deeper significance. Darwin 
himself, as a specialist, had nothing to say to us on 
the origin of life, nothing, assuredly, on the origin 
of the universe. At one point, indeed, he unavoid- 
ably opened up very deep problems. For among 
the species with which he dealt was the human race ; 
and a discussion of the origin of mind involves a 
reference to the beginnings and ends of all things ; 
it forces us back to first principles and drives us on 
to the final problems. But of this, perhaps, Darwin 
was never adequately aware. Every one who has 
studied philosophy sees it, but Darwin, though a 
specialist of genius, and a specialist on a great scale, 
was still, after all, a specialist. And he never claimed 
to bring the world a new cosmical philosophy ; it was 
enough for him to introduce one new hypothesis, link- 
ing together all forms of life, and to see this hypoth- 
esis conquering mind after mind, until the whole 
civilised world seemed to bow to its discoverer. Dar- 
win dealt with the evolution of species, Spencer has 
dealt with the evolution of the universe. 

What, again, was the special contribution made 
by Darwin to his problem — so old a problem, with 

1 e.g. Dr. E. Caird. In a deeper significance, perhaps, as implying 
necessary or organic relation between the organism and its environment 



68 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part H 

which so many minds had grappled, and, on the 
whole, so very unsuccessfully ? Primarily of course 
it was the doctrine of natural selection through the 
struggle for existence. As students of social phi- 
losophy, we are specially interested to recall that 
Malthus's doctrine of population directed Darwin's 
attention to the aspect of struggle in nature, a fact 
or aspect of things which he speedily traced through- 
out all living nature, vegetable or animal. But the 
doctrine of natural selection — of survival of the fittest 1 
— of improvement of species through the struggle, 
and gradual development of new species — that was 
Darwin's own brilliant corollary. He perceived that 
selection was sure to accompany struggle, if at least 
there were any differences or variations separating 
competitors from each other. The best man, or 
brute, or plant must win, upon the average, and in 
the long run, if only there were better and worse, 
better and best, blended in the competition. Other- 
wise struggle might mean deadlock and mutual ex- 
haustion, as of two equally matched armies after a 
long campaign, and general doom to extinction, as of 
the survivors from a wreck when food runs short. 
But variations do notoriously exist. Nature, which, 
" red in tooth and claw," unmistakably asserts the 
fact of struggle, not less clearly reveals the fact of 
selection with its two sides of defeat and victory, and 
with its basis in a tendency to vary. This variation 
is mainly conceived as congenital. Some are born 
better, some worse. Not only are the offspring of 
better parents better equipped ; within the same family, 
as experience shows, some are better equipped than 

1 Spencer's phrase, however. 



CHAP. Vn EVOLUTION IN DARWIN 6g 

the rest, some sink below the average. How far this 
tendency to vary went, Darwin never dogmatically 
affirmed. It was enough for him usually to treat it 
as casual and therefore as undefined. The great 
concern of nature, the arch examiner, was not to 
secure good candidates, but to secure a plentiful 
flow. If there were but enough, some good speci- 
mens would assuredly be found. So said, so done ; 
teeming nature, as we call it, brought forth all things 
abundantly, ay, and superabundantly ; not monoto- 
nously, in mechanical batches, but with minute yet 
important differences ; the result was continuous ad- 
justment, and adaptation, and evolution, and improve- 
ment, at the cost of a heavy and remorseless "pluck," 
year after year, age after age. Finally, what varia- 
tion, and struggle, and selection have beaten out, 
heredity preserves. Within the limits of variation 
heredity perpetuates, in the offspring, the good and 
victorious qualities of the parents. 

This, in very rough and brief outline, is the central 
portion of Darwin's hypothesis, — the doctrine of 
natural selection through struggle. When this doc- 
trine is applied to morals or politics, we have Darwin- 
ism in morals or politics. Where this doctrine is ab- 
sent or subordinate, we may have evolutionism in 
morals or politics ; Darwinism we have not. In this 
lay Darwin's superiority over many evolutionist prede- 
cessors, he had laid his finger upon a vera catcsa, an 
undeniable fact in nature, — the abundance of off- 
spring, or — otherwise roughly stated — the scanti- 
ness of food ; upon an undeniable tendency in na- 
ture ; a tendency to improve and modify all living 
forms, — improving them, i.e., so far as to make 



JO FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

them fitter to survive in their given environment. 
Theories like Lamarck's of the direct action of en- 
vironment might be plausible, but they seemed to 
lack verification. Darwin's theory sprang into a dif- 
ferent position because it appealed undeniably to real 
facts ; although it gave them a very startling exten- 
sion in the range of their operation. Certainly the 
plain man would have said that the tendency, though 
real, was too infinitesimal for its work. One would 
have said that natural selection was as utterly unable 
to explain variety of species, as Sadler's doctrine, or 
Herbert Spencer's hope, to meet the difficulties 
alleged by Malthusianism regarding the human race. 
No doubt, human reproduction becomes less rapid as 
population thickens. The alleged self-correcting 
tendency of the growth of population is a true cause, 
so far as it goes ; or rather it is a group of causes, 
urgently requiring to be disentangled, to be studied, 
named, estimated one by one ; but, in their whole re- 
sult, they are altogether insufficient to check over- 
population. And in like manner Spencer's cause is 
a true cause. It is undoubtedly true that there is a 
general correlation of fecundity with a low position 
on the evolutionary scale ; it is true that, as mental 
and aesthetic interests count for more, the physical 
tendencies of sex will count for less in the human 
race ; yet, as far ahead as we can trace, there will 
still be problems of population. So one would have 
said of natural selection too : It is a true cause, but 
cannot possibly do the work asked of it. Its effects 
are minute; being minute, they will be immensely 
slow in achieving anything. A blind and indirect 
method of selection, by striking out all the unfit — 



chap, vii EVOLUTION IN DARWIN 7 1 

by trial and error — is the most tedious method possi- 
ble. If at every cross-roads I have to follow each 
track in turn, taking them as they come, going on in 
each case to the next town before I can learn whether 
I am on the right road, — if I am wrong, coming 
back from the town to my cross-roads and trying the 
next track till I find a town upon it, and so forth and 
so forth — plainly, it may take me all my days to 
work my way to my chosen destination. 

Darwin's theory, however, includes other elements 
besides natural selection ; and these, if reliable, seem 
to point to agencies which would accelerate the pro- 
cess of evolution. One addition which Darwin pro- 
posed to his doctrine was sexual selection. " None 
but the brave deserves the fair" — that is half the 
new doctrine. For sexual selection is believed to ex- 
ist in two forms : first, when the males fight with 
each other for the privilege of access to the females, 
as in the case of lions or stags ; secondly, when the 
males vie with each other in aesthetic attractiveness, 
as Darwin supposed to be the case with birds, and as 
a larger number of observers believe to be demon- 
strated in the case of certain insects. The assump- 
tion appears to be that the unsuccessful males remain 
almost or altogether sterile by force of circum- 
stances ; accordingly, a criticism passed by Wallace 
upon Darwin's theory of a sexual selection in the 
case of birds is to the effect that, apparently, even 
the least beautiful of male birds finds a mate sooner 
or later during the pairing season ; that the inferior 
forms leave offspring as well as the superior forms ; 
that accordingly no selection between different forms 
is due to the imperfect rivalries of courtship. It 



72 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part ii 

might be possible, surely, to meet even this difficulty. 
Presumably, the successful males, whether fighters 
or beauties, will pair off with the most desirable 
females ; there will be an intensified divergence of 
offspring in the next generation, with consequent 
emphasis upon variation, and hastening of the final 
victory of the strong over the weak. On the other 
hand it may be held that sexual selection — in this 
sense — is only a remedy for an obvious weakness in 
the process of natural selection, — the danger that 
advantages will be lost by crossing. But if, as is 
usually thought, sexual competition implies the celi- 
bacy or nearly so of the unsuccessful candidates ; 
then we have before us a direct and psychical pro- 
cess of selection, not an indirect and natural process ; 
a short and straight process therefore, not a long and 
circuitous one. Of course, one is not guilty of the 
absurdity of saying that the females are conscious of 
a preference for the best male specimens qua best, or 
are urged by an enthusiasm for the ideal ! We only 
affirm that, in virtue of their animal minds, they yield 
themselves to the stronger or to the fairer. Yet again 
a question may be raised, whether the evolution of 
beauty, supposed to enter into the second form of 
sexual selection, is necessarily the same thing as an 
evolution in strength and efficiency. It may well be 
so. Beauty may well be correlated to those qualities 
of health and vigour which make a type intrinsically 
fitted to survive. As Mr. Grant Allen once remarked 
in a rare moment of inspiration or common sense, the 
saying that beauty is only skin-deep is itself but a 
piece of skin-deep and superficial wisdom. Yet, even 
if beauty does not imply superior health and vigour, 



chap, vii EVOLUTION IN DARWIN 73 

so long as beauty is not developed at the sacrifice of 
useful qualities, sexual selection will hasten the evolu- 
tionary process along lines on which it has already 
begun to move — along the line of beauty, if not in- 
contestably along the line of strength or aggregate 
fitness. 

Another supplement to Darwin's central doctrine 
is what may conveniently be termed use-inheritance. 
This played a great part in the evolutionary theories 
of Lamarck, along with a still more questionable 
doctrine, that of direct adjustment of the organism 
to its environment. As the comic song puts it, the 
giraffe got a long neck by stretching to reach the 
upper branches. That is scarcely Darwinism ; it is 
much nearer Lamarckism. The Darwinian giraffe 
happened to be born with a longer neck than the 
remainder of his family, and consequently outlived 
them all in a time of scarcity, and was the only 
giraffe who transmitted his qualities to offspring. 
If the giraffe stretched its muscles and its vertebrae 
to their utmost, and begat a son whose neck, un- 
stretched, was as tall as the parent's in his habitual 
tiptoe attitude, that would be use-inheritance — one- 
half of Lamarck's doctrine, and an accredited though 
a subordinate portion of Darwin's. If, however, the 
hungry giraffe organised in itself by some means or 
other an extra joint, or an extra set of muscles, or, 
as would probably be necessary, both, that would be 
a grotesque illustration of the second half of La- 
marck's theory, — of direct action by environment in 
the way of modifying an organism ; a grotesque 
illustration of a sufficiently grotesque belief. At 
times, it is said, Darwin writes as if he were willing 



74 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

to admit this, viz. as a source of variations. But he 
has never formulated a theory of the cause of varia- 
tions. He is content, as we observed, to treat them 
as casual. That, however, cannot mean that they 
are uncaused, or that the uniformity of nature breaks 
down as we approach microscopic cell processes. 
Perhaps at the utmost we can justify the phrase by 
taking it to mean that congenital variations from 
the parental qualities are neither on the average 
advantageous to the species, which might be re- 
pudiated as a somewhat strong teleological doctrine, 
nor yet disadvantageous to the species, a view which 
would imply a sort of dysteleology, as if we lived in 
the devil's world, and evolution had to go on with 
a dead heave in spite of the recalcitrance of nature. 
Chance or accident in common language means " not 
purposed," and it may perhaps be fair to call varia- 
tions " casual," if they stand on the average neutral 
to the purpose or end of the species, viz. to survive 
and propagate itself. Still the epithet used without 
analysis is rather slovenly, and any thinking which 
is fairly summarised by the use of that epithet must 
be regarded as rather slovenly too. Or, if we hesi- 
tate to say this of Darwin, we may at least affirm 
that he left much ground for subsequent investiga- 
tion. He concerned himself but little with the laws 
determining variation. There were variations ; there 
were candidates of varying degrees of merit. Get 
me candidates, he said in effect; I will give you an 
examiner who, however tedious in method, is in the 
long run unerringly wise. Nature will select, come 
the variations how they may. At times, as we have 
said, Darwin seems willing to accept Lamarck's 



chap, vii EVOLUTION IN DARWIN 75 

cruder and less verified doctrine, of a direct self- 
adjustment of the organism to the environment as 
a source of variation. Plainly, however, if this does 
occur, then, so far as it occurs, it supersedes natural 
selection. The supplement to the theory will dis- 
place the theory itself. Those called in to give help 
as allies will remain as absolute sovereigns. There 
is no need of indirect methods for compassing a 
teleological result, if such a result may come about 
directly through the living powers of the organism. 
We shall do well then to neglect this admission by 
Darwin in favour of extreme Lamarckism, par- 
ticularly as it seems to be a mere obiter dictum} 

Even use-inheritance, however, will avail to shorten 
the process of natural selection. The offspring will 
start at the point which the parents had reached when 
it was conceived, not at the point where the parents 
themselves started, nor yet at that point plus a certain 
amount of casual variation. On the other hand, we 
shall have to notice later on that this accelerating 
process of use-inheritance is much less confidently 
believed in to-day than in the hour of Darwin's abso- 
lute supremacy. 

1 Darwin's clearest references to the causes of variation are prob- 
ably found in his Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestica- 
tion. The theme is therefore a restricted one, and it must be added 
that the language employed is less clear than would be wished. The 
following references may be consulted: vol. ii. pp. 290, 305, 311, 552. 
It should be added that to a certain extent any reliance on Lamarckian 
factors, even for " use-inheritance," tends to throw the tedious process 
of natural selection into the background. 



CHAPTER VIII 

DARWINIAN AND SPENCERIAN CONCEPTIONS OF 
EVOLUTION SPENCER 

A cosmic philosophy — Resting on correlation of forces — And on 
hypothesis of organic evolution — Emphasising natural (physical, 
material) law — Darwinism as a cosmic philosophy ? Alexander 
— Cf. Lotze — Cf. Fiske — Spencer values true use-inheritance as 
accounting for a priori knowledge — But natural selection is not 
the source of his laissez faire doctrine ; he looks forward to a future 
" balance " — His relation to embryology — Evolution means grow- 
ing complexity — In terms of matter — Two other phases — Disso- 
lution as death — As catastrophe — Equilibrium is theoretical and 
prophetic — Spencer's sequence of the three phases — Criticisms : 
on the assumed beginning of the process — On its isolation — On 
equilibrium, as involving a different point of view — Reason is more 
than a new phase of complexity — The whole process breaks up into 
a series of separate evolutions in complexity 

Mr. H. Spencer's problem is wider than Darwin's, 
extending, as it does, to the whole of the phenomenal 
or " knowable " universe. The impulse to it came 
from two scientific theories of the age. The first was 
Grove's proof of the correlation of the physical forces, 
clenched by Joule's determination of the mechanical 
equivalent for heat. As a result of this, the inorganic 
world seemed to gather itself together in one, and to 
manifest its unity as it had never done before. 
Phenomenally, the differences remained ; heat was 
heat, light was light, electricity was electricity ; but 

76 



chap, viii EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 77 

it was now proved that some were mutually converti- 
ble, and it was henceforth probable that all were so ; 
it was known that some were modes of motion, and 
it came to be believed with increasing definiteness 
that all the others were equally modes of motion. 
In the invisible world of molecular change it was as- 
sumed that these diverse branches combined in one 
common trunk. The second discovery was Darwin's 
account of the origin of species. Before this theory 
was broached Spencer was already on the track of 
his own thoughts. If it helped him it did so rather 
by confirming his original bias than by making him 
a convert to the special peculiarities of Darwinism. 
In its simplest shape Spencerian evolution is an as- 
sertion of the all-sufficiency of natural law, a denial 
of intervention from outside at any stage in the 
process by which the universe has become what it is. 
Moreover, natural law means here strictly physical 
law; everything is to be explained in terms of "mat- 
ter and motion." This denial of all miracle, and of 
everything analogous to miracle, gives evolution its 
charm in the eyes of a fighting evolutionist like Mr. 
Edward Clodd. On Spencer's premises " there is 
nowhere else" outside the process whence interfer- 
ence might come. Mr. Spencer is confident that he 
can account for the beginning of the whole process. 
The inorganic world has been unified by one dis- 
covery, the organic by another. True, the transition 
from one to the other had not yet been cleared up in 
terms of natural law ; nor has that been done, one 
may add, until this day ; but by an act of scientific 
faith Spencer affirms that the last remaining gap 
must also be filled up, and natural law remain as the 



y8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

power from which all things have proceeded — master 
of the whole situation. 

When we ask whether there is any close connection 
between Spencer's philosophy and the doctrine of 
struggle for existence, we feel at once that Darwinism 
is almost impossible as a cosmic philosophy. Pro- 
fessor Alexander seems, indeed, to contemplate giving 
a position of universal importance to the Darwinian 
doctrine when he writes as follows : " The application 
of evolution to morals may mean only the employ- 
ment of biological ideas ; or it may mean that morals 
must be treated as one part of a comprehensive view 
of the universe, in which a steady development may 
be observed from the lowest to the highest phenom- 
ena, and a development, it may be added, zvhich 
follows the law of the survival of the fittest." x The 
use of biological ideas we have seen in Comte, though 
doubtless only in one of many possible applications. 
We shall not find much more in Mr. Leslie Stephen's 
Ethics, though he has of course, in the background, 
a belief in evolution on the grand scale, as a cosmic 
philosophy. Spencer works out such a philosophy, 
and we see in it a considerable amount of pressure 
directed upon ethics from other parts of the fabric of 
knowledge. But in Spencer there is no attempt to 
take the law of the survival of the fittest out of its 
biological limits, and to give it a cosmic significance. 
So far as he traces an influence from one cosmic 
system upon another which has advanced any dis- 
tance along the evolutionary path, he regards such 
influence as purely mischievous. It makes for dis- 
solution, but not for evolution. Perhaps even Mr. 

1 Moral Order and Progress, p. 14. 



chap, viii EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 79 

Alexander did not seriously mean to include the 
physical "universe" in his Darwinian scheme. Com- 
peting organisms we know ; are competing universes 
anything better than a delirious dream ? Organisms 
die out, not because they are too ill-balanced for the 
tasks of life, but because they are, on the whole, in 
their own environment, inferior to other organisms, 
and therefore succumb in the competition. We must 
go back to very early "pioneers of evolution" — to 
Democritus or Empedocles — if we are to find sur- 
vival of the fittest seriously applied to the cosmic 
process. Yet its logical possibility is pressed upon 
us by so distinguished a man of science, philosopher, 
and theist as Hermann Lotze. " With reference to 
the past, we are at liberty to assume that at first an 
innumerable multitude of inharmonious forms, intrin- 
sically hostile to any end, actually emerged from the 
reciprocal impact of blind elements ; that these forms, 
however, were not able to maintain themselves in the 
course of nature, as against the contrary assaults 
from without; that on the contrary only those few 
held out which had chanced to be the more fortu- 
nate ; that then these fortunate ones exerted more 
and more a determining influence upon the rest; 
and that thus gradually it has come to pass that 
nature runs its course, not indeed in complete and 
perfect conformity to an end, but after all to such an 
extent that there still remain but few disturbances or 
interferences by which the development and perpetu- 
ation of the structures that are conformable to an end 
is endangered. In this way, therefore, it would not 
be unthinkable that an original chaos gradually 
shaped itself into a nature that is arranged in con- 



80 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

formity to ends." 1 Moreover, the postulate under- 
lying such a view — in Lotze's opinion, of course, a 
mere logical abstract possibility ; in no wise a fact — 
is given on the previous page : " If we take for 
granted that an indefinite multitude of different ele- 
ments act upon one another entirely in accordance 
with mechanical laws, and that they were aboriginally 
in reciprocal motions, which were not regulated by 
any design." This postulate, named by Lotze only 
that he may presently dismiss it as metaphysically 
untenable, 2 is identical, not perhaps with Spencer's, 
but certainly with his disciple Fiske's, " the mere co- 
existence of innumerable discrete bodies in the uni- 
verse, exerting attractive and repulsive forces upon 
each other." 3 Spencer, perhaps characteristically, 
prefers to give us vague glimpses of a "homogeneous " 
though highly "unstable " J continuum in space, finite in 
its dimensions, as the origin of all change. We con- 
clude, therefore : a cosmic philosophy might perhaps 
be grounded on a more than Darwinian apotheosis of 
competition. But no modern has tried to work out 
such a scheme — unless Lotze in one of his paradoxi- 
cal moods as the candid friend of theism. Fiske misrht 

O 

have been tempted in that direction, but was not. 
Spencer did not even cast one glance towards it. 

Only one part of Darwin's theories is specially 
important to Spencer — the Lamarckian doctrine of 
use-inheritance. That is the basis of Spencer's 
reconciliation of Intuitionalism with Empiricism. We 

1 Outlines of Philosophy of Religion, tr. p. 20. 

2 The many elements reducing themselves to elements in one great 
system ; the separate processes to one many-sided evolution. 

3 Cosmic Philosophy, ii. p. 867. 



chap, viii EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 8 1 

modern men possess intuitive knowledge — partly of 
mathematical, partly of moral truth — simply because 
our ancestors have had a wide range of experience of 
mathematical and moral facts, and have been able 
to impart their principles to us in the shape of innate 
tendencies to believe — tendencies which forestall 
experience and anticipate its results ; generally with 
accuracy. Thus Spencer has an answer for many 
difficulties. What gives conscience its awful author- 
ity over the human spirit ? What makes right and 
wrong so different, psychologically, from a calcula- 
tion of consequences ? Why, the experience of law- 
abiding and dutiful generations, whose blood flows in 
your veins. Again one asks, what is the hold that 
the public weal has upon me, a separate individual, 
with my own desires, ay, and my own rights ? 
But his reply is ready. The tribal or national con- 
science is within you ; it is a part of you from your 
birth ; sinning against it you sin against what is best 
in yourself. Morally, however, Spencer gives this 
no great range, and his colleague or disciple, Mr. 
Leslie Stephen, writes a treatise on ethics without 
once mentioning it. Spencer is little inclined to 
admit true moral axioms ; he is resolved to keep the 
door open for a phenomenalist doctrine of " causal 
connexions" in conduct, if not exactly for hedonistic 
sophistications. It is elsewhere that he has frankly 
confessed the existence of axioms, mathematical or 
" transcendental." He has got his explanation of 
these, if he is allowed the appeal to use-inheritance ; 
but if not ! Spencer is fighting for his hearth and 
home and for all that he counts most sacred, when 
he girds himself to refute Weismannism off the face 



82 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

of the earth. Apart from use-inheritance, indeed, 
one does not see how the evolution of mind is ever to 
be made decently intelligible, unless because " intelli- 
gence " was in the beginning a " casual variation " of 
small amount — and the stupider specimens died out, 
etc., etc ! That explanation will never fail those 
whom it can satisfy. 

Except on this point of use-inheritance, Spencer is 
hardly to be regarded as Darwinian in his thinking. 
Natural selection has hardly influenced his statement. 
I do not mean that he refuses help from the doctrine, 
when he finds help offered incidentally, in the bio- 
logical or historical region. He is too good a tacti- 
cian to do that. But Professor D. G. Ritchie seems 
quite unwarranted in explaining Spencer's laissez 
faire individualism by his bigoted attachment to the 
doctrine of natural selection by struggle. Far from 
that; Spencer's golden age of individualism lies in 
the future, in a period of equilibrium ; but if struggle 
is all-important, such a period can never arise. Over 
against Darwin's conception of many organisms 
competing with each other, Spencer sets up a pic- 
ture of one great peaceful process. Mr. Leslie 
Stephen tells us we ought perhaps to regard human- 
ity as a single organism ; Spencer seems almost to 
regard the whole of the universe as one great organic 
growth. Embryology shows him the simple, almost 
homogeneous cell differentiating itself and growing 
complex ; it is the same process Spencer traces in the 
universe, though he states it in terms barely of 
" matter and motion." 1 

1 Spencer has admitted his indebtedness to von Baer, the embry- 
ologist, for the idea to which he has given so wide an extension. 



chap, vin EVOLUTION IN SPENCER 83 

What then is evolution, that key to the whole 
knowable universe, as stated in Spencer's own sys- 
tem ? What are its great laws, or what are the prop- 
erties manifested by " matter and motion " as the 
subjects of evolutionary change ? 

There is one word which may state sufficiently for 
our purposes what is meant in Spencer by evolution — 
the word complexity. Evolution means growing com- 
plexity ; more complex is more evolved. Whatever 
technicalities are unfolded in the successive definitions 
given in the course of the volume upon First Prin- 
ciples, they do not carry us beyond this contrast of 
the simple and the complex. They are drawn up 
" in terms of matter and motion," which means that 
the details of the definitions apply to inorganic 
matter or to the physical basis of life, but cease to 
bear any meaning in psychology and sociology, 
in what Mr. Spencer calls " superorganic " evolu- 
tion. It may plausibly be held that, as knowledge 
advances, thought grows continually more complex, 
though it may be questioned with something more 
than plausibility whether it is possible in ultimate 
analysis to resolve the complex of consciousness into 
isolated presentations — even if we throw them into 
the region of the subconscious. Complex grows 
more complex as knowledge advances, but complex is 
complex, not simple, in the very first manifestation of 
knowledge. Evolution, then, may be applied to mind 
as well as to matter in the sense of growing com- 
plexity; but what shall we make of the statement 
that there is an integration of matter and concomitant 
dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes 
from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite 



84 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

coherent heterogeneity, and during which the retained 
motion undergoes a parallel transformation ? Thought 
cannot be stated in terms of matter and motion; 
there is a gulf between the two. No doubt brain 
may grow more and more complex as mind advances ; 
but that is a physiological truth, not a psychological ; 
and Spencer vindicates psychology against Comte's 
criticisms as a separate science. Well, then, even if 
this science exemplifies the evolutionary tendency 
to complexity, it does not, and cannot, fulfil Spencer's 
formulated law of evolution. The case is no less 
clear as regards sociology or ethics. But what is the 
use of a law that does not fit the facts ? What is 
the use of claiming to give an interpretation "in 
terms of matter and motion " when the terms them- 
selves rebel against the office to which they are put ? 
Evolution, however, is not the only great interpre- 
tative category which Mr. Spencer has in view. It 
is flanked by two others — dissolution and equili- 
bration. Dissolution is the opposite of evolution. 
Equilibration stands between the two — the last stage 
in evolutionary process within any finite aggregate 
before the forces of dissolution break in from the out- 
side. At first sight nothing can seem more trivial or 
truistic than this threefold view of nature. Every- 
where things are either growing more complex, or 
else getting less complex, or else standing still with- 
out either gain or loss. No doubt, but pray what 
else could things do ? Did it need a great philoso- 
pher, controlling all the thought of the past and all 
the science of the present ; did it need a system of 
philosophy in a dozen volumes to teach us this 
pedantic formula ? 



chap, vni EVOLUTION — SPENCER 85 

Yet perhaps there is rather more underneath the 
surface, whether well founded or ill. 

First, as to dissolution. Dissolution is by no 
means of equal importance, in Spencer's systema- 
tising of knowledge, with evolution. At times, 
theoretically, he may co-ordinate the two ; but nine- 
tenths of his energy is spent in showing how nature 
weaves her web ; barely one-tenth is allotted to the 
process of unpicking the fabric and resolving it again 
into its threads. In one form dissolution has a place 
in the system of nature as we know it, viz. in the law 
of death, which is so general in the organic world. 
But surely it needs no argument to prove that dis- 
solution, taken in this sense, does not counterbalance 
evolution, or even neutralise it pro tanto. Death is 
an element in the evolving system of organic life. 
Darwin has taught us to regard death as the great 
implement by which progress is secured through the 
weeding out of the less fit and vigorous forms. 
Weismann has conjectured that the habit of dying a 
natural death, however originated, may have been a 
direct advantage to the mortal species, clothed as 
a species with perpetual youth, in contrast with rudi- 
mentary or hypothetical species of living creatures 
which were potentially immortal. 1 But, apart from 
such questions, we know that death is accompanied by 
reproduction, and is balanced by it, and that the great 
evolutionary differentiation of plants and animals from 
the one-celled type has gone on in the midst of death. 
Surely, then, dissolution is a mere incident or episode 

1 Weismann does not admit that he thinks of a literal struggle be- 
tween essentially mortal and potentially immortal forms. What then 
does he mean, — he, a hyper-Darwinian? 



86 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

in evolution so far as we are to identify dissolution 
with death. 

There is, however, a further sense in which dissolu- 
tion may be regarded as the opposite of evolution — 
if it come as a great cosmic catastrophe, bringing to 
an end {e.g.) the adjustment which has kept the solar 
system in equilibrium during untold ages. Of course 
such a crash on such a scale must tell not merely 
upon planetary evolution, but upon any organic or 
superorganic evolution, of which the planets in ques- 
tion had been the scene. From this point of view any 
disastrous tempest, or earthquake, or volcanic eruption 
may be regarded as a sample of dissolution. The 
larger occurrence of similar forms of dissolution Mr. 
Spencer seems to keep in reserve in order to account 
for the end of all things phenomenal. Considering 
the various applications of the term, may we not say 
that dissolution differs from evolution, not merely in 
tendency or direction, but also in rate of speed ? 
That the one is slow and gradual, the other abrupt 
and cataclysmic ? This is a fresh reason for declin- 
ing to admit that the two terms are of equal impor- 
tance in Mr. Spencer's thinking. 

Passing next to speak of balance or equilibrium, we 
notice that, in Mr. Spencer's system, balance is not 
mainly contemplated as a phenomenon of experience, 
occurring in a relative sense, or up to a limited ex- 
tent, and accompanying the processes of evolution. 
Mr. Spencer, of course, is fully aware that life, e.g., is 
a "moving equilibrium." But beyond that truth of 
experience there presses on his mind a supposed 
truth of theory, a doctrine of equilibrium, in which 
balance is strongly contrasted with evolutionary pro- 



chap, viii EVOLUTION — SPENCER &? 

cess as the limit of evolution, and the goal to which 
it tends. 

Accordingly Mr. Spencer gives us this curious pic- 
ture of the eternal and necessary nature of things : 
every system of matter and motion, which admits of 
being studied by itself, and which is subject to no in- 
fluences from without except such minute ones as 
may fairly be disregarded, — if it is in a state of com- 
parative simplicity, must, by eternal necessity, grow 
more and more complex, till at length it has perfectly 
worked out the inner scheme of possibility prescribed 
to it by its original deposit of matter and motion. 
When it has done this evolution must cease, equilib- 
rium superseding it. In this sense of the term equi- 
librium now begins to reign. And the reign now 
begun, so far as appears, might, for good or for evil, be 
eternal, so perfect will the inner equilibrium have 
become, — if only there were not other systems of 
matter outside the balanced system of which we are 
speaking — other systems which, sooner or later, will 
interfere in its affairs with a crash of dissolution. 
Then comes the third and shortest act in this drama. 
Hitherto subordinate, counterbalanced, overruled, dis- 
solution will now be master of all ; the web of changes, 
so slowly woven, so long preserved, will be rapidly 
torn into shreds ; the wheel will have come full cir- 
cle, and nature will begin once again "at the very 
beginning." 

By this time the evolutionary doctrine of Mr. 
Spencer has ceased to bear any resemblance to a 
truism. Vague as are its terms, they are sufficiently 
startling. Fichte seemed a bold man when he an- 
nounced a test for all possible revelations ; Spencer is 



S8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

not less bold when he prints a programme for all pos- 
sible universes! And all this is in the name of 
science — the old and sober science of mathematics. 
Spencer assumes a definitely limited stock of matter, 
a definitely limited stock of force, or, as he prefers to 
say, of motion ; and he alleges that every universe, 
constituted of these materials, must continuously be- 
come more and more complex, until it reaches a bal- 
ance and ultimately is wrecked by an impulse from 
without. If this is a scientific certainty, so be it. 
Yet, without attempting to control Mr. Spencer's use 
of science, one may express surprise at two or three 
features in the scheme. First, there is the perplex- 
ing doctrine of the instability of the homogeneous. 
It would have been so much simpler for nature to 
remain what it was than to work out a position of 
balance by more than aeonian evolution, only to re- 
turn once again to homogeneity and instability. So 
far, the doctrine seems to be this : evolution is neces- 
sarily originated because of the very nature of matter 
and force. Secondly, one may express surprise that 
the forces from without should be assumed to act only 
at the very beginning of all things, or at the very end 
of all things. If they can tear up a worn-out uni- 
verse, are they not likely to tear up the majority of 
universes before they have so much as half run their 
course ? Their interference may be orderly enough ; 
it may only result in a richer capitalising of the busi- 
ness ; but assuredly if such things happen, evolution 
will need to start de novo. Thirdly, the grounds for 
the theory of equilibrium are not manifest to the 
plain reader. If matter and force can and must initi- 
ate a process of growing complexity, and push it on 



chap, viii EVOLUTION — SPENCER 89 

for ages, are we sure there is a reason in the nature 
of things compelling this oscillation to cease ? Does 
not the doctrine of final balance point to a different 
conception of evolution, as if it depended, not on the 
healthy nature of matter and force, but on a certain 
disturbing element, and as if, when the disturbance 
was once adjusted, progress ceased ? So long as the 
stoppage is supposed to affect only one limited evolv- 
ing system, interference may come from other limited 
systems outside, and renewed evolution may take 
place. But we must not always study nature piece- 
meal. And, if the whole of nature works into a final 
balance, which, as Mr. Spencer says, may very well 
turn out to be a thing kindred to death rather than to 
life, then the whole of nature will remain there as still 
as a stone — the clock having run down, will continue 
at rest till the end of eternity. 

There is, however, another point still to notice in 
characterising Spencer's views of evolution. He not 
only asserts evolution, as the good and grand side of 
nature, in aeons of necessary and continuous growth 
in complexity ; he assumes under evolution things 
much more wonderful than any complexity — he as- 
sumes life and thought. As far as his formula goes, 
the universe might run its course and reach the end 
of its tether without ever quitting the region of the 
inorganic. That is the result of stating evolution "in 
terms of matter and motion " ; your definition does 
not apply to the higher manifestations of nature. 
Our universe, however — or let us say our world — 
has reached such higher manifestations. It has trav- 
elled all the way from the assumed solar nebula, not 
merely to planets, not merely to rocks, and water, and 



90 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

atmosphere, but to plants, and brutes, and men, and 
societies, and ethical systems, and schools of philoso- 
phy. All these are accordingly claimed and tabu- 
lated among the workings of evolution. But the 
formula does not point to them. It must therefore 
be improved in some way. We may turn here to 
theism, using it as of old in supplement to the for- 
mulas of science. God works on nature from out- 
side. Evolution causes nothing. It may be God's 
method. He causes all these great results. Or else 
the formula must be amended, and we must interpret 
the process by its highest stages, not by its lowest — 
by life and thought rather than by matter and force. 
This issue must really be fairly faced. Either life 
and thought are an anomalous by-product (whatever 
that may mean) in the story of a universe which is 
purely and essentially material ; or life and thought 
are the interpretation of nature — the end for which 
it exists — the hinted justification of its age-long 
travail and agony. The two opposing views come 
out very clearly in Mr. Fiske's version of Spencer's 
positions, and one is glad to know that, of later years, 
in Mr. Fiske's case, the higher and nobler view has 
gained much ground at the expense of the other. To 
merge these new orders of existence under the vague 
heading of "growing complexity" — to assimilate 
them to purely mechanical redistributions — is not 
fair-play. The result is this : in his general philo- 
sophical appeal, Spencer assumes that all existence 
reveals a gradual ascent upwards — -upwards, i.e. t to 
life and thought. And the knowledge that life and 
thought have emerged on this earth inclines men to 
regard favourably the claim of evolutionism to serve 



chap, viii EVOLUTION — SPENCER 



91 



as a philosophy. But, when he comes to state his 
system in detail, the very attempt to trace unity of 
process is abandoned. Instead of that, we have a 
number of parallel developments ; material simplicity 
(homogeneous matter) passing into material complex- 
ity (universes) ; biological simplicity (the cell) passing 
into biological complexity (the multicellular organism); 
psychological simplicity (the presentation or impres- 
sion or psychical " shock ") passing into psychological 
complexity (mind); sociological simplicity (the tribe 
of kinsfolk) passing into sociological complexity 
(through militarism to industrialism, the final non- 
coercive order). From the formula of " growing 
complexity " no one could have deduced, or can de- 
duce, organisation, consciousness, history. Again, 
take Mr. Spencer's subdivisions in any one of the 
higher sciences. It is well to review the historical 
phenomena of human society under the heads of 
domestic, political, ceremonial, and ecclesiastical in- 
stitutions. These headings are drawn from know- 
ledge of the special facts to be dealt with. Can any 
one say that the abstract formula of growing com- 
plexity suggests these subdivisions ? Is any light 
thrown upon them by speaking of " aggregations of 
matter " or " parallel redistributions of contained 
motion " ? The great German idealistic philosophies 
may claim our faith, or they may find us no better 
than doubting Thomases, but at least we owe them 
this admission, — they have tried to exhibit the 
world we know as the necessary realisation of one 
great principle in stage after stage. Mr. Spencer 
has not been bold enough or rash enough to at- 
tempt this. But, without doing it, he claims all 



92 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

the advantage of having done it, and of having 
crowned his efforts with success. If we are able to 
distinguish words from things, we shall refuse to 
admit that so great a distinction can be so cheaply 
earned. 



CHAPTER IX 

MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES OF HUMAN WELFARE 

Goodness is more evolved conduct, i.e. is " wisdom " — An appeal to 
(cosmic) history ! — It is balance, of egoism and altruism — An 
appeal to economics and to (hedonistic) psychology — It is individ- 
ual freedom — An appeal to rights, and to (human) history, emerg- 
ing from militarism — For which Spencer feels an exaggerated dread 
— Spencer masses facts rather than unifies knowledge — The "so- 
cial organism " is only a phrase with him 

Having sought to differentiate Spencer's position 
as an evolutionist from Darwin's, we may now return 
to our more proper theme, by asking what doctrine 
or doctrines of human welfare Mr. Spencer furnishes. 

We note three main positions, independent of each 
other. First, human conduct is good or wise in pro- 
portion as it is more evolved ; secondly, in propor- 
tion as it draws near the ideal goal of ethical progress, 
the perfect balance between egoistic and altruistic 
impulses ; thirdly, in proportion as it is faithful to 
the high attainments of modern social advance with 
its ideal of a still higher future, when the compulsory 
co-operation distinctive of militarism shall have en- 
tirely given place to the free co-operation distinctive 
of industrialism. 

The first of these positions is not specially formu- 
lated or emphasised by Spencer, but represents an 
assumption that runs through much of his system, 

93 



94 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

and that works to the surface at many isolated points. 
Good conduct is more evolved than bad conduct, and, 
being more evolved, it is more complex. The bad 
man is like a clumsy juggler who can barely keep in 
motion two balls at once ; the good man is like a 
clever juggler who, without sign of effort, can con- 
trol his half-dozen balls or more. With this is associ- 
ated the conception of evil and in particular of crime, 
as atavism. The criminal is a survival or revival of 
a lower social type ; he cannot bear the stress of 
civilisation at its present pitch, and so falls back 
upon "good old rules" and "simple plans." A 
further implication is plain. So far as this mode of 
conceiving things is true, moral progress runs par- 
allel with intellectual progress, and rests upon it. 
The criminal breaks down because he is psychologi- 
cally incompetent. Goodness is wisdom. Perhaps 
such a position is a wholesome corrective of dangers 
that beset ordinary ethical thinking. When we have 
begun by distinguishing between intellectual and 
moral advance and by insisting that one may be 
found in separation from the other, we are too apt 
to let the distinction harden into an absolute contrast. 
It is well to have our attention recalled from sim- 
plicity, as a moral ideal, to the rival claims of wis- 
dom. For ultimately all ideals must converge ; and 
no sort of goodness can long commend itself which 
fails to make room for the higher tasks of culture 
and the finer growths of intellect. If we ask next 
what is the authority for this view of things as as- 
sumed by Spencer ? If Comte may be regarded as 
appealing to biology, to history, and to a half-psycho- 
logical, half-ethical doctrine of altruism, to what does 



chap, ix MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES 95 

Spencer here appeal ? We must answer that he ap- 
peals to the whole cosmic process. It is a kind of 
appeal to history, but to history generalised and ex- 
panded far beyond the range of the human race. 
From the unstable homogeneity of the hypothetical 
nebulous cloud, beyond which thought can discover 
no deeper foundations in the abyss of the past, thence 
on to the present, all things, as they have evolved, 
have grown ever more and more complex ; let us too 
join the onward march ; let our minds expand and 
ramify and interweave their forces ; let us grow ever 
better and better by growing ever more and more 
elaborate and intricate in our behaviour ! An im- 
pressive appeal, if you have any sort of religious 
faith, theistic or even pantheistic. If " all things are 
working together for good," then the behaviour of 
" all things " may well furnish a type for our own 
conduct. But, apart from the assumptions of reli- 
gious faith, it hardly seems possible that so abstract 
a formula as "growing complexity " should command 
the reverence of the human conscience. And one is 
driven to ask whether conscience has not its own 
tests ? And whether Spencer's appeal does not 
carry its own limited cogency just upon this account, 
because it has been examined, and, in a sense, coun- 
tersigned by conscience? Whatever may be the 
philosophy of conscience, the voice of conscience 
does not wait for authority from evolutionary doc- 
trine or from any other outside critic, before telling 
us, and that in no faltering tones, that goodness is 
wise, that sin is foolish, and that wisdom, which is 
one name for goodness, demands from us progress, 
both intellectual and moral. 



96 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

The second of Spencer's ruling moral conceptions 
is that of a balance between egoism and altruism. 
This balance is twofold ; there is to be a balance be- 
tween egoistic and altruistic promptings in the indi- 
vidual; and there is to be a balance between personal 
gratification and social service in experience. But the 
two processes are to be developed harmoniously, and 
are to achieve their tasks together. On one side, 
this draws from Spencer's general evolutionary phi- 
losophy. It corresponds to that doctrine of final 
balance which is so dubious and so characteristic an 
element in his deductive processes. Historically, it 
probably owes its suggestion to the doctrine of the 
stationary state formulated by the Political Econo- 
mists. To them progress meant largely numerical 
growth in population. When that tremendous press- 
ure should have to cease for lack of further space, 
they looked forward to a stationary state of society ; 
and J. S. Mill at least plucked up courage to regard 
the stationary state as a thing to be desired rather 
than dreaded. In Spencer's system, this conception 
is given the lordship over ethical thought, strictly so- 
called; and complexity, or the progressive ideal, is 
overborne by the ideal of balance, or fixity, as a 
Utopian or millennial vision. Has this ideal any 
further authority beyond the place allotted to equi- 
librium in Spencer's First Principles? Assuredly it 
has. It represents the hedonistic postulate. It 
represents an appeal to consciousness, and to that 
form of consciousness which declares pleasure to be 
the end of life. Distracted between the craving for 
personal pleasure and the momentous claims of others, 
the individual is bidden take comfort from the evolu- 



chap, ix MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES 97 

tionary process, which, moderating personal claims, 
and increasing altruistic efforts, is preparing a heaven 
upon earth for the benefit of our very remote poster- 
ity ; at least, if the world lasts long enough. But the 
fundamental postulate remains: pleasure is the good. 
All systems, we are told, virtually involve this as- 
sumption, and all moral truths are lighted up by it. 
Why is altruism good ? Because it gives pleasure to 
other persons, although at personal cost. Why is 
egoism good ? Because a judicious tincture of egoism 
increases average happiness. Thus, in this depart- 
ment of the system, the supreme law is not " Be 
complex," but " Get pleasure," or, in its noblest form, 
" Give pleasure," but in the form which best repro- 
duces the meaning of the doctrine of balance, " Pro- 
mote maximum pleasure." This psychological test 
of the good overrides and controls all the other tests 
with which it is associated in the Data of Ethics — 
physical, biological, sociological. Spencer himself 
bears witness to this fact — to the supremacy in his 
thinking of a psychological test ; nor have any reason 
to challenge or complain of it. By all means let the 
moral consciousness speak ; and let it be a supreme, 
if not a solitary, guide ; but are we sure that this 
hedonistic doctrine is the authentic and final utter- 
ance of the moral consciousness ? Is complexity — 
which in Spencer's thinking stands for moral and in- 
tellectual progress — really to yield its place of 
supremacy to compromise or balance, if the latter 
secures maximum pleasure all round ? 

The third ideal dominates Spencer's formulated 
sociological doctrine. Here he is the out-and-out 
champion of individualism. His sociological law- 

H 



98 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

giving distils down into a single old phrase, laissez 
faire. Of course so acute and systematic a thinker 
betrays the same bias in his ethical writings as in his 
sociology. He is a thorough individualist in his 
emphasis upon justice, with its indefinite appendixes 
in favour of negative and positive beneficence. Both 
as moralist and as sociologist, Spencer is full of the 
thought of individual rights : in curious contrast with 
previous utilitarian writers, and in curious sympathy 
with intuitionalism. This doctrine of rights consti- 
tutes, in fact, one of the most genuine and most 
important among the vanishing traces of intuitional- 
ism in Spencer's thinking. Still it seems fair to say 
that when he handles ethics technically this doctrine 
of rights is overruled and held in check by a doctrine 
of maximum pleasure. The Utopian state is not 
praised on account of its freedom, so much as on 
account of its balance and harmony. All this is 
altered when we pass to the technically sociological 
discussion. Here freedom is the good ; not harmony 
or co-operation per se, but that harmony or co-opera- 
tion which results from freedom in contrast with that 
which results from compulsion. This (sociological) 
doctrine is supported by an appeal to history. The 
cosmic philosophy is silent here, except in so far as it 
hints that the voluntary co-operation of industrialism, 
being later in origin than militarism, is presumably 
higher — more truly evolved — more complex. There 
is hardly any trace of hedonism in the argument. If 
the appeal to history ran into the form, " Freedom 
has worked better ; " " Freedom has increased aver- 
age happiness ; " that would, of course, be sound 
hedonistic doctrine. But Spencer, like Comte, has 



chap, ix MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES 99 

little taste for detailed historical parallels as a means 
of appeal to history; both prefer to look to the 
mighty onward current, — while unfortunately their 
witnesses, reporting what they see there, agree not 
together. Comte regards individual freedom as a 
sign of the weakness inherent in " critical periods," 
which can be nothing better than narrow bridges 
leading from one organic period to another ; Spencer 
regards individual freedom as the highest stage in 
evolution — the great good towards which past condi- 
tions have steadily moved on. Comte, in the name 
of fact and science, preaches a new synthesis; Spen- 
cer, speaking in the name of the same great authori- 
ties, pronounces a curse upon it. Every attempt at 
closer social organisation seems to him a relapse into 
outgrown military forms of society, and an act of 
treason towards industrialism. He does not discuss 
this, but takes the assumption for granted, with an 
a priori vehemence that we should find it hard to 
match, outside the ranks of scientific empiricists. Of 
course he has informed himself, as few men have 
done, of the vast prevalence of militarism during 
former ages. Where society has been highly central- 
ised or organised, it has been in the past, one might 
almost say, uniformly, a society of a military type. 
And a very little study of sociology will make it plain 
that, if a society is drilled and regimented and over- 
governed, it will lend itself much more readily to 
manipulation for military ends than a freer or more 
individualist society would do. Still, all this hardly 
constitutes a proof. It may be unfair to style it a 
prejudice : let us call it a presumption, and a grave 
presumption ; but is it a proof ? The Hindu who 



100 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

mocked at the very idea of ice had a wide experience 
of the fluidity of water ; and it is perfectly true that 
H 2 tends strongly to the liquid state, being a liquid 
" at ordinary temperatures and pressures " ; yet solid 
water is a fact of some importance to Arctic and 
Atlantic voyagers, whom it brings into danger ; not 
to mention British outdoor labourers whom the frost 
robs of work, or plumbers to whom it is better than a 
mine of gold. Ice then is a fact, though to some it 
may be a novel fact. And socialism might be a 
practicable policy even though it be a new development 
of strict social organisation. It is not disproved by 
calling it bad names. Neither socialism itself, nor 
the modern political changes stigmatised by their 
opponents as socialistic, are in the least degree 
animated by any conscious breath of the military 
spirit. They do not mean to serve it ; and, whether 
they turn out good or evil, we cannot be sure that 
they will turn out to be in the line of militarism. 
There is no promise or potency of a coup d'e'tat in the 
Government purchase of telegraphs or even of rail- 
ways. When Mr. Spencer insists upon treating every 
civil servant as a disguised soldier and secret con- 
spirator, he does not carry our convictions with him ; 
he only proves to us that the new science is very like 
the old obscurantism, and that you may find a perfect 
sample of the High Priori temper in a mind wedded 
to familiar facts, and inaccessible to unfamiliar ones. 
Mr. Spencer then has given us three ideals ; and 
they hardly seem to agree with each other. One is 
an ideal of progress, two of fixity ; one praises com- 
plexity, another tells us that the best government is 
the minimum of government, but that means simplic- 



chap, ix MR. SPENCER'S THREE DOCTRINES 101 

ity, not complexity. It is the nature of reason to 
invent short-cuts and to retrench needless labour. 
The most advanced is not necessarily the most elabo- 
rately organised ; it is not so, if Mr. Spencer is right, 
in society. Moreover, the sources of authority are 
different. One appeals to the cosmic process ; one 
to the experience and tendency of human history ; 
and one direct to consciousness. In Martineau's lan- 
guage, Spencer's ethics, technically so-called, are 
"psychological ethics" though "heteropsychological." 
Surely we have reason to fear that the promised uni- 
fication of knowledge is still sadly to seek. Vast 
masses of knowledge have been collected. They 
fairly bristle with suggestions — highly interesting, 
extremely divergent suggestions ; but neither within 
the four corners of Mr. Spencer's own system, nor 
when we bring his teaching into comparison with 
that of other votaries of fact, do we find science still- 
ing the metaphysical strife, or giving clear guidance 
in human things. 

One part of Mr. Spencer's teaching, held by him 
like some others in common with Comte, has not yet 
been referred to ; his doctrine of the analogy between 
society and an animal organism. I have omitted this, 
because I regard it as an ornamental excrescence on 
Spencer's teaching, not as an essential or even a sig- 
nificant part. Whatever function the appeal to biol- 
ogy played in Comte, it seems to play very little part 
in Spencer. "The social organism" is an outplayed 
authority — a god emeritus — a depotentiated deity — 
on Mr. Spencer's pages. " The social organism " is 
a metaphor with him and only a metaphor. The indi- 
vidual cells are asserting themselves, and the unity of 



102 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part h 

the organism is coming off second best. If Comte 
tells us, " Be parts ; be mere parts, living for the sake 
of the whole," Spencer thinks such advice the very 
worst possible. Each for himself; fair-play all round ; 
justice the supreme consideration, politically and so- 
cially ; the occasional surrender of individual rights 
purely a personal matter, with which public action 
and public opinion dare not interfere — such is Mr. 
Spencer's social programme. It is the antithesis of 
Comte's. Where Comte says, "Yes," Spencer says 
" No," very nearly all the way through. We take it, 
therefore, that, beyond serving to explain his views 
lucidly and add a grace to them, the doctrine of the 
social organism does nothing for Mr. Spencer. 



CHAPTER X 

mr. Leslie Stephen's "science of ethics " 

Stephen a utilitarian — Who came to believe in evolution as a scientific 
fact — Begins here with facts ; ethical judgments exist — Organisms 
seek maximum efficiency — If social " tissue " is " organic " — Then 
ethical laws may be the conditions of maximum social efficiency — 
(Nature cares for individuals) — Nature says, " Be strong ! " — Ethics 
says, " Society, be strong ! " — The ethical is the typical society, and 
therefore ethical judgments are binding — But the type is actual, not 
ideal ! — Society is a complex whole, changing while its parts are un- 
changed — Criticism — Sanction for individual goodness lies in sym- 
pathy merely — Sometimes we are too good for our own interests ! 
Compared with Comte, lacks authority — With Spencer, calls 
"health" the ideal, and ridicules " balance " — With Darwin, not 
struggle of individual with individual, but of individual with society 

— With Utilitarianism; discourages the calculation of consequences 

— Most of his positions may be accepted in a deeper sense 

Mr. Stephen makes his intellectual history very 
plain in the preface to the Science of Ethics. He 
started in the life of thought as a utilitarian, under 
the strong influence of J. S. Mill ; and he never came 
to regard the utilitarian position as discredited. But, 
in course of time, impressed partly by Darwin's theory, 
partly by Spencer's writings, he began to crave a re- 
statement of ethics. This was in no sense a conces- 
sion to intuitionalism. Spencer's " reconciliation of 
intuitionalism with empiricism " is indeed accepted by 
Mr. Stephen, as appears from his other writings; but, 

103 



104 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part 11 

unless one has read the Science of Ethics very care- 
lessly, no reference is made to the doctrine in Stephen's 
moral system, and it seems to go for little with him. 
Indeed, his first view of evolutionism hailed it as a new 
stick for beating the intuitionalist dog withal — a new 
reason for rejecting the conception of ready-made and 
all authoritative ideas in the human mind. And when 
he conceived the possibility and desirableness of a new 
system of morals, he had not in view a worthier ethic 
than utilitarianism, but rather one more fully in har- 
mony with new scientific truths. Science, not philos- 
ophy, demanded the change. Evolutionism must be 
given effect to. If the change results in a more 
adequate statement of moral ideas, that is, for Mr. 
Stephen, a secondary matter. The great thing with 
him, as on a broader canvas with Mr. Spencer, is to 
unify thought. One fresh province is to be gained 
for the master principle, evolution. As Prussia Prus- 
sianises its Polish dominions, as Russia desires to 
Russianise Finland, so Mr. Stephen evolutionises his 
ethics. Of course in each case the conquered is as- 
sured that ultimately his own interests will be served 
through accepting the regime dictated by the con- 
queror. 

When dealing with Comte, we suggested a difficulty 
for thorough-going phenomenalism in the very con- 
ception of duty ; and we argued that Comte uses the 
doctrine of the social organism as justifying the claim 
for individual submission to the public weal. Mr. 
Stephen also makes an appeal to biology, but he does 
not directly employ that appeal as a basis of ethics. 
He begins more simply, by accepting current moral 
judgments. Science deals with facts ; well! these are 



chap. X "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 105 

facts. Ideal ethics, indeed, are no facts of everyday 
experience ; but Mr. Stephen tells us that he has noth- 
ing — so he says ; nothing — to do with ideal ethics. 
It is the current rules, which have been historically 
recognised and appealed to, for which he desires to 
find a scientific basis. Mainly he is concerned with 
defining ethics — with reaching greater accuracy than 
is possible for the colloquial judgments of mankind. 
His voyage is one of survey and measurement. Ulti- 
mately his reasonings must bear on the question of 
the justification of ethical judgments ; primarily, he is 
concerned with their precise statement. And, indeed, 
precision is one great mark of science, along with 
exhaustiveness and coherence. 

What, then, has evolutionism done for him ? First, 
it has taught him that every organism strives to attain 
to its maximum efficiency. Darwin, indeed, has 
pointed out that the organism which fails to strive, or 
fails to attain, fails also to survive. There is, how- 
ever, little direct Darwinism in the Science of Ethics ; x 
and in its absence Mr. Stephen's view of an organism 
sounds almost Lamarckian — dreadful word ! — or 
even — more dreadful still — Spinozistic. He has 
borrowed from science the fact that each organism 
seeks maximum efficiency. Darwin's view of the 
reason of that fact he accepts rejoicingly; but he 
does not utilise it. 

Secondly: he agrees with many predecessors in 
holding that society is essentially organic ; and he 
gives the usual and correct interpretation of that 
statement, viz. that in society, as in plants or ani- 

1 Some passages on pp. 72, 73, 91, 92, where Mr. Stephen does 
Darwinise, are quoted in Williams's Evolutional Ethics, 419, 420. 



106 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

mals, the whole explains the parts or is prior to the 
parts ; that you cannot explain the whole as a me- 
chanical combination of separate parts, but on the 
contrary, must have a knowledge of the whole before 
you can correctly define or explain any one part. 1 
Since man is essentially dependent on society — since 
man is by nature social — therefore we call society an 
organism. It is doubtful whether we can credit this 
thesis to the contributions which Mr. Stephen has re- 
ceived from evolutionism. It goes back — not to 
search more deeply — as far as Comte, who had no 
patience with idle inquiries into the origin of species. 
But in Mr. Stephen's mind it is lighted up and vivi- 
fied by modern evolutionary science — especially by 
the doctrine of a "moving equilibrium" between 
organism and environment. 

In the next place, Mr. Stephen may be said to 
combine these two positions in a syllogism, which 
issues in a third proposition by way of conclusion. 
Since all organisms strive after maximum efficiency, 
and since society is an organism, 2 society also will 
strive for maximum efficiency. But — here to a cer- 
tain extent hypothesis begins — we may very well un- 
derstand moral rules as the outcome of this striving, 
or as the formulated conditions of maximum social ef- 
ficiency. The effort or nisus of the social organism 
has broken into consciousness in the individual mem- 
bers of society in the shape of moral commands or 
ideals of duty. A Darwinian doctrine of competing 
organisms is scarcely if at all found in Mr. Stephen. 

1 p. 32 ; cf. also p. I IO. 

2 We shall see, however, presently that Mr. Stephen prefers a slightly 
different phraseology. 



chap, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 107 

So far as he thinks of any competition, the competi- 
tion is rather between the claims of the individual 
man and the claims of society. Each man is an or- 
ganism, immersed in the thickest of the struggle for 
existence, striving to do the best for himself. But then, 
society too is an organism ; and it also strives ; and its 
precepts cut across the blind self-interest of the natural 
man — checking it, modifying it, perhaps overruling it. 
Morality then — it is a hypothesis, but a strong one 
— consists in the recognised and approved conditions 
of social efficiency. There are, however, some quali- 
fications. So far as social well-being implies indi- 
vidual physical well-being, we do not (unless in a 
secondary degree) count the observance of such con- 
ditions among moral duties. It is not a moral act to 
eat when one is hungry — it is natural. Nature se- 
cures our doing that ; society need not trouble about 
the matter; and morality — which is the voice of 
society, protecting the interests of the race — if it 
speaks of prudential regard to one's health and inter- 
ests as a duty, gives prudence a comparatively low 
position among the virtues. Whatever is the out- 
come of organic natural impulse forms rather a pre- 
supposition than a part of morality. Further — 
consulting, as I understand him, the usage of lan- 
guage — Mr. Stephen is inclined to confine the epi- 
thet " moral " to altruistic actions. Ordinary conscious 
action in one's own interest seems independent of the 
moral spur. It seems to stand almost, though not 
quite, on the same level with natural instinct. But 
with these two qualifications — that morality does not 
include those conditions of social efficiency which are 
taken care of by instinct, nor yet those in which the 



108 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part II 

social demand coincides exactly with the promptings 
of rational self-interest — Mr. Stephen holds that 
morality means the law of the social weal, or the con- 
ditions of maximum social efficiency. The law of 
nature is summed up in one terse injunction : " Be 
strong ! " The law of morality is similar : " Let 
society be strong ! " And social strength or welfare 
is found to lie in the individual virtues of courage, 
temperance, and truthfulness, along with the more 
directly social or altruistic virtue which is sometimes 
hailed as "justice," and again as "benevolence," but 
which, in every case, takes as its direct and supreme 
rule the highest interests of society, or the welfare of 
other persons. 

Mr. Stephen explains this conception of morality 
by the aid of the idea of type. A type in each class, 
apart from extrinsic and accidental tests, is that which 
attains maximum efficiency. The most moral human 
society is the most efficient or most prosperous human 
society. Here then Mr. Stephen has found a second 
answer to the question, How can empiricism speak of 
morally better and morally worse ? The first answer 
was provisional; the moral consciousness is a fact, 
and we accept its utterances as approximately trust- 
worthy. The second answer goes deeper. Morality 
is not something externally added to social life, as a 
necklace or a posy of flowers may form a slight addi- 
tion to the graceful dress of a beautiful woman. 
Morality is simply the perfect performance of social 
functions, like the glow of health upon a beautiful 
countenance. Therefore human life in society points 
to perfect morality as its own typical perfection in the 
way of vitality or of health. And here we see what 



chap, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 109 

biological evolutionism has done for Mr. Stephen. 
It is not indeed strictly necessary for his argument. 
There might be evolution in human society, with the 
moral law as its ideal goal, even if there were no evo- 
lution of species in the infra-human world. The 
"typical bow" which is "felt out" might point us to 
Mr. Stephen's conception of morality as the true type 
of our own social being, even if there were no evi- 
dence that " the animal . . . feels itself out." 1 But 
there would not be the same trace or hint of authority 
in Mr. Stephen's evolutionary interpretation of morals, 
did we not believe in the origin of species by a process 
of evolution. Morality is vindicated when we see that 
all nature, or all animated nature, toils upwards, and 
that our goal, if not as individuals, yet as a race, is 
moral goodness. The morally good society is the 
typically human society ; the morally good individual, 
so far as he is good, is qualified for membership in 
that society. Here, however, a difficulty arises. 
Mr. Stephen renews his warning against a doctrine 
of absolute or ideal ethics. The type is a real type 
in the actual present, a type constantly modifying 
itself as the environment alters or as the conditions 
of struggle change. Yet on the whole the broad out- 
lines of the type are fixed ; the cardinal virtues are 
recognised on all hands, very nearly as they have 
been blocked out by Mr. Stephen ; and we may say 
in general terms that morality represents the human 
ideal — the demand addressed by the race to every 
individual. Here as elsewhere, Professor Alexander 
gives us a more extreme position on the lines of Mr. 
Stephen's tentative suggestions. 

1 p- 79- 



110 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

It is necessary to emphasise one other feature 
in Mr. Stephen's evolutionary view of ethics. He 
insists that, in such a society as that of mankind, the 
organic whole may change while the individual or- 
ganisms are unchanged. In a somewhat obscure 
passage he contrasts this most complex case, ex- 
emplified in human society, with simpler cases, in 
which the individual organism and the social or- 
ganism are modified simultaneously. One cannot 
help thinking that the whole distinction is a piece 
of very doubtful philosophy. What Mr. Stephen 
wishes to bring out by it is the fact that the social 
organism exerts its influences by the spiritual forces 
of thought and language, apart from any necessary 
reference to physiological change. So completely 
is Mr. Stephen indifferent to the moral applications 
of Mr. Spencer's view — which he shares 1 — as to 
the origination of apparently intuitive perceptions. 
Morality is evolved, according to Mr. Stephen's 
statement, not at all by means of a growing stock 
of innate moral sentiments, though he believes in 
these, but essentially by a super-organic process in 
the region of human culture and intercourse. Train- 
ing makes the man. Physiologically there is as good 
as no difference between the civilised and the savage. 
This is proved by the fact that the infant child of 
civilised parents, if stolen by savages, will grow up 
in the likeness of the savage race, and that the child 
of savages, if reared among the influences of civilisa- 
tion, will make a very fair average citizen. Dif r 
ferences there may be, which will hold their ground, 
even when transplanting has occurred and the new 

1 English Thought in 18th Century, i. p. 56. 



chap, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" r III 

environment has done its work ; but these (or so I 
understand Mr. Stephen) are insignificant in com- 
parison with the broad fact that every child or man 
is a human being, homo sapiens, and therefore a 
moral being; that each child or man is merged in 
the community where he has grown up and takes 
on its colour. Now one is fully prepared to agree 
with the positions here laid down. A man's a man 
for a' that ; there is a vast moral unity in the human 
race. But Mr. Stephen's mode of stating his posi- 
tion seems highly dubious. Anthropologically or 
physiologically, man may be simply man, neither 
more nor less ; but we were speaking of sociology, 
were we not? If the social organism is changed, 
are not the constituent individuals changed, socio- 
logically? Strange metaphysical subtlety of em- 
piricists, if this is to be denied ! To remind us 
that the members of society are physiologically un- 
changed is beyond the mark. To point out that civi- 
lised citizens would have been savages, if reared 
among savages, is again beside the mark. The ques- 
tion is not what they might have been, but what they 
are. Mr. Stephen may settle it with other authorities 
whether or not it is true that the "innate faculties 
of a modern European differ little from those of the 
savages who roamed the woods in prehistoric days." 1 
Be that as it may, the educated faculties of a 
modern European differ greatly from those of a con- 
temporary or prehistoric savage after his fullest 
savage training. Else the two societies could not 
differ. Mr. Stephen thinks he is offering us a 
contrast between the individual human organism 

1 p. 102. 



112 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

and the social organism ; he is only marking the 
contrast between two distinct sciences, sociology 
and biology. 

So far, then, we have got the following account of 
ethics from Mr. Stephen ; it is the law of the social 
weal imposed, essentially by precept and example, 
upon individuals. But there still opens before Mr. 
Stephen another problem. How does the individual 
come to receive and obey the aforesaid law ? And 
why should he do so ? He is led to care for others — 
so we may put Mr. Stephen's view — by sympathy. 
To be aware of pain — of another's pain — is to be 
more or less pained oneself ; to be aware of pleasure 
— another's pleasure — is to have a pleasing object 
of contemplation, and thus to be oneself more or 
less pleased. Two harps stand near each other, you 
strike a chord upon one, the other takes up the 
sound — that is a picture of the origin of moral feel- 
ing as Mr. Stephen states it. If any one is inacces- 
sible to these secondary emotions, evoked by primary 
emotion on the part of his fellows, his intellect is at 
fault; he cannot have clearly understood that they 
are really suffering or really happy. It follows that 
he is an " idiot," says Mr. Stephen. Now, sympathy 
is a vague and ambiguous word. If you say that 
morality rests upon sympathy you may mean almost 
everything that the moralist can require, or you may 
mean hardly anything at all. Mr. Stephen, like 
Adam Smith I take it, means very little indeed. 
Morality rests upon a rooted psychological incapacity 
for clearly distinguishing between meum and tuum. 
It would seem perfectly open to the selfish man to 
retort the charge of idiocy against moralists of Mr. 



chap, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 113 

Stephen's type. " Idiot yourself," the bad man 
might say, with great force. For indeed there is 
nothing so incommunicable and purely personal as 
mere pleasure or mere pain. And moral sympathy, 
which makes us partners with one another in all 
things, is very far removed from automatic prompt- 
ings or illusions as to the limits of personality ; it 
does not fall below clear thought, but includes it 
and goes beyond it. Love is a relation of person 
to person, and the keen pang of love is not due to 
any vague apprehension, " What ! there is suffering 
about, is there?" but to the dreadful consciousness, 
" He is in pain ! Precisely he ! Not I, but he ! 
That is the maddening thought ! " Yes, and there 
too lies the ennobling experience. 

The further question, " Why should I yield ? why 
care for others ? " receives the answer, " Generally 
in the long run it pays in pleasure to oneself to do 
so ; but sometimes, we must admit — in unfortunate 
cases, or where there is too lavish generosity — self- 
sacrifice means a heavy nett loss." And with that 
the science of ethics, as conceived and worked out 
by Mr. Stephen, confesses itself bankrupt. The 
point has come at which the question of the justi- 
fication of the moral judgment can no longer be 
thrust aside. Defined at first as social requirement, 
duty is now tested from the point of view of the in- 
dividual consciousness; when a gulf discloses itself 
between the individual life and the social whole. 
We live in an irrational world ; for our nature craves 
and postulates happiness ; and, although sometimes 
when we deserve it we get it, yet often we have to 
do without. Better look facts in the face ! There 



114 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part H 

is no more to be said. The timid man will obey 
morality as a sort of insurance policy : he will be 
moral on the chance that immorality may be 
punished. But often the bold man will play a 
recklessly speculative game — heavy risks, great 
profits. If he succeeds, how can you prove to him 
that he chose wrongly? The "idiot" may have 
been quite right from his own point of view. So 
much for the " Science of Ethics " ! The Christian, 
too, admits that our moral nature lays down great 
postulates, to which experience does not always 
conform. But we look to the future for the recom- 
pense of reward — not " so much pleasure for so 
much goodness," but a larger life, and the " wages 
of going on and not to die." 

It will clear our thoughts if we compare Mr. Ste- 
phen with his predecessors. 

First, with Comte. In some respects Mr. Stephen 
seems to be the legitimate heir of Comte, especially 
in regard to the biological appeal. Stephen's think- 
ing is guided throughout by the biological analogy, 
and he is able to throw fuller light upon it by 
the modern evolutionary conception of infinitesimal 
changes which maintain a moving equilibrium. Like 
Comte again, and unlike Spencer, he definitely iden- 
tifies morality with the claim of society upon the 
individual in contrast with all individual claims or 
wishes. But here the likeness to Comte ceases. 
First of all it is perhaps significant that Mr. Stephen 
refuses to speak of a social organism, preferring the 
more indefinite phrase, social tissue. That points us 
to the individualism which lurks in the background 



chap, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 115 

of his mind, — to his impending reassertion of the 
cells versus the organism, — to his postulate of per- 
sonal pleasure as an ultimate test. But there is a 
more immediate difference from Comte, in Mr. 
Stephen's distrust of sociology and of all forms of 
authority. Keeping that in mind, we might almost 
say that Mr. Stephen uses the biological analogy to 
reach sociological but not moral truth. With Comte 
sociology was the new ethic ; or, at the lowest, soci- 
ology, the science of corporate action, was the neces- 
sary basis of ethics as the science of individual conduct. 
Mr. Stephen, however, speaks contemptuously of the 
attainments of sociology. He thinks it scarcely a 
science, and values its standpoint merely as a step- 
ping-stone to a new statement of ethics, in which the 
biological analogy defines rather than justifies the 
moral law. It follows that the biological appeal has 
not the moral or qttasi-moral weight which it had 
with Comte. Nothing takes its place. The appeal 
to consequences admittedly breaks down. In fact 
there is a marked absence of authority in ethics as 
presented by Stephen. Comte says, "You are 
members one of another, be loyal members of the 
social whole." Stephen says, " Social tissue requires 
you to do so-and-so, and of course you are very de- 
pendent on the social tissue ; still, you have a centre 
of being in yourself, and there is always the possibility 
left that it may pay you to defy society ; very rarely 
indeed will it do so, but sometimes, no doubt, it will, 
if you are unsocial enough, idiotic enough, bad enough." 
Comte allots no sphere at all to the individual, while 
Stephen, like other hedonists, gives him a sphere, but 
makes it fall outside of morals. What is moral is not 



Il6 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part n 

personal, but social. What is personal is not moral, 
but hedonistic. 

As compared with Spencer, Stephen also deals 
mainly with one great harmonious process of evolu- 
tion, though with him it is purely biological — either 
the maintenance of health, or the fuller unfolding of 
life ; and he does not trouble us with definitions in 
terms of matter and motion, or with hymns of praise 
to complexity. Spencer's second great ideal, that of 
balance between egoism and altruism, is dismissed by 
Stephen as a Utopian dream ; but he would dearly 
like to lay hold of it, if he dared, for he is as much a 
hedonist as Spencer; and, in the absence of perfect 
righteousness even from Utopia, Mr. Stephen's whole 
moral world lies at the mercy of chance. On Mr. 
Spencer's third ideal, that of political and social 
laissez faire, Mr. Stephen finds no occasion to ex- 
press an opinion in his own more purely ethical 
treatise. 

Next, if we contrast Mr. Stephen's positions with 
those of Darwin, or rather with those suggested by 
Darwin's views, and worked out later in their ethical 
and social bearings by other writers, we observe an 
almost entire absence of any doctrine of struggle for 
existence. Evolution is accepted in the Darwinian 
sense, but little or no reference is made to the Dar- 
winian theory of the conditions of evolution. That 
remains true even in regard to the few passages 
where Mr. Stephen in a sense Darwinises, speaking 
not of one human social tissue, but of diverse forms 
of tissue. These various tissues may be thought of 
as competing with each other, but are hardly recog- 
nised as struggling for life, and as either dying out 



chap, x "SCIENCE OF ETHICS" 1 17 

or else covering the whole field. If Mr. Stephen has 
a struggle in view at all it is that between morality 
and selfishness, social tissue and personal organisms, 
society and individuals — a dreary conflict, to which 
there seems no discernible limit on the farthest 
horizon. 

Finally, how does he differ from Utilitarianism ? 
There is one very important practical difference. 
The Utilitarian, as a moralist or spiritual director, 
defines right and wrong, and urges men to define 
right and wrong, by a computation of visible results, 
in the light of the present tastes and faculties of liv- 
ing men. Mr. Stephen on the other hand, when he 
speaks as an expert upon moral points, — as a con- 
sulting moral physician, or the giver of "counsel's 
opinions " in morals, — Mr. Stephen remembers what 
evolutionism has taught him, that the race has changed 
and is changing. Therefore he keeps in mind the 
probability that results, which we think highly advan- 
tageous, may be judged very differently by a future 
society when it measures them by its new standards 
and altered tastes. And therefore Mr. Stephen 
appeals to recognised moral duties and maxims as 
guides to social welfare. He distrusts the most acute 
calculation of the consequences which we can foresee. 
Morality has been evolved on the lines of social ad- 
vance, and points us on to the true line of further 
progress. Not pleasure, but health or vitality, is to 
be our test. Now this is good and wholesome teach- 
ing, far better than hedonism, however universalistic. 
But with Mr. Stephen this is all a technical thing. 
He speaks thus as a moralist to moral minds. But, 
when he speaks as a man to individual men, there is 



Il8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part ii 

instantly a relapse into hedonism, and that of the 
selfish sort. Granted the moral judgment — given 
a soul devoted to the social weal — Mr. Stephen 
offers vigorous and pointed encouragement, and dis- 
suades one from being argued out of obedience to 
conscience. But, if the moral judgment be disputed, 
and if any soul prefers his own private weal, Mr. 
Stephen gives no help. To call selfish men " idiots " 
merely because they distinguish menm from timm is 
not helpful. Tastes differ — that is the last word on 
these questions, if we adopt Mr. Stephen's premises. 
One thing more we might be tempted to inquire, 

— How far is this whole mode of looking at morals 
true and serviceable ? But hitherto we have raised 
no such issue, and it would hardly be wise to discuss 
it at this particular point. Only so much we may 
say : if the community is to be the authority in 
ethics it must not be narrowly identified with any 
external society ; and that which it lays down as 
duty must not be merely what is socially convenient 

— still less, what is convenient for society and costly 
to the individual ; duty must include absolute and 
ideal elements, whose fulfilment is quite as much for 
the interest (in the true sense) of the individual as 
for that of society. But, granted some such deeper 
view of society, it may be useful to have a statement 
of morality as the single or continuous human ideal, and 
to have this in terms of biology. It is well, too, that 
one of the biologising moralists should emphasise, not 
obscure subconscious possibilities of organic change, 
but the knowable influences of human education and 
historic culture. We shall quote Mr. Stephen for 
this at a later point. 



PART III 

DARWINISM, OR STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE 



CHAPTER XI 

" DARWINISM IN MORALS " — MISS COBBE'S PROTEST 

Darwinism may be applied to morals by analogy — Or, as here, by 
explaining man's evolutionary origin — Miss Cobbe attacks Darwin's 
explanation of the rise of morals out of intelligence plus sympathy 
— And the hypothetical palliation of murder — Little trace of natu- 
ral selection in Darwin's ethical statement — Darwin's analysis may 
be accepted, not his view of reason 

It is not necessary again to recapitulate the lead- 
ing points of Darwinism. Nor is it desirable to 
pause at present in order to weigh some very grave 
metaphysical objections * to the terminology and con- 
ceptions with which Mr. Darwin went to work. We 
are more concerned to ask how Darwinian ideas have 

1 Urged with great force by Dr. Hutchison Stirling, and incident- 
ally brought out with masterly power in Mr. George Sandeman's Prob- 
lems of Biology. Mr. Sandeman's statements go far to convince one 
that Darwin's theory is only a possible way of putting the process of 
evolution for purposes of study, and by no means an account of the 
way in which the process actually took place. It mig/ithave happened 
just so, by random shots, and constant weeding, in the course of end- 
less time. But did it? 

Possibly Mr. Sandeman himself might prefer a more sweeping 
verdict. See further in chapter xvii. 

119 



120 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

affected the theories of morals or of society which 
follow biological lines. 

Now plainly there is an ambiguity here. In the 
previous chapters,' for the most part, we have been 
dealing with a scientific analogy, — consciously lifted 
out of one region of thought and introduced into 
another, — coming no doubt with a great deal of 
authority, but still presenting itself to view, and con- 
tinuing to be regarded, as a foreign visitor. We shall 
still find such a course followed in some instances 
by writers who are employing Darwinian clues and 
modes of thought. The doctrine of struggle for 
existence may be applied to other things besides 
plants or animals, — to competing states, or types 
of society, or types of ethical thought. But there 
is a nearer way in which Darwinism may bear upon 
our problems. Man himself as an organism is 
brought within the range of Darwinian theories. In 
connection with the assertion of man's descent from 
brute races, fresh light — of a lurid kind, as many 
will think — is made to fall upon the problems of 
ethics ; and questions as to social origins will run 
back into questions regarding human origin by pro- 
cess of evolution. 

When the world first heard of " Darwinism in 
Morals " from Miss Frances Power Cobbe, it was to 
this latter bearing of the Darwinian theories that she 
called attention by a resonant protest. Darwin — 
like Leslie Stephen after him, but with a distincter 
reference to animal ancestors of the human race — 
explained morality from sympathy, and from the 
interests of the species. In particular, he laid it 
down that the social instinct, with intelligence added 



chap, xi "DARWINISM IN MORALS" 121 

to it, would sufficiently explain the origin of moral 
ideas. This shocked Miss Cobbe's intuitionalist pre- 
possessions ; she could not bear to see moral ideas 
analysed, as if they were compounded of other, and 
these non-moral, elements. But above all, Miss Cobbe 
was aroused to natural indignation by Darwin's sug- 
gestion, a propos to the action of bees in killing off 
drones, that, if the welfare of our species had re- 
quired, under any conditions, a similar practice of 
murder, then the human conscience would undoubt- 
edly have ranked murder not among vices but among 
virtues. 

None of these positions seems to be peculiarly 
connected with the theory of evolution by a process 
of struggle for existence. They seem to belong 
rather to evolutionism in ethics than to Darwinism 
in ethics ; although, as positions put forward by 
Darwin, they naturally and quite fairly received the 
title under which Miss Cobbe attacked them. Still, 
any thinker who believed in the continuity of life 
between man and beast, might, if he pleased, formu- 
late similar positions to Darwin's. On the other 
hand, it is perfectly plain that such positions are 
incompatible with old-fashioned intuitionalism. 

It is equally plain that the new fable of the bees 
is also (like the old one, as generally understood) 
incompatible with loyalty to morals. But the attempt 
per se to deduce morals from intellect plus social sym- 
pathy is not to be so summarily rejected. It is time 
to recognise that old-fashioned intuitionalism, with 
all its honest loyalty to the truth and its essential 
right-heartedness, is weak, as philosophers say, for- 
mally, and is no longer fit to sustain the "struggle 



122 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part ill 

for existence " against subtler theories. The whole 
method of building up mind from simple elements 
is an illusion, whether practised by intuitionalists 
or by naturalistic schools of moralists. There is no 
primitive atom in mind. Every element implies 
every other. If it is true in biology that the whole 
is prior to the parts, how much more in psychology ? 
Moral judgments are not proved to be artificial, or 
secondary, or subordinate, if it is shown that they 
can be interpreted in terms of man's social nature. 
Man is moral because he is social : yes, very true ; 
but we are no less entitled to read the proposition 
from the other end, and to affirm that man is social 
because he is moral. He is both social and moral 
in a higher sense than the brute races. We must 
not assume that the earliest stages in development 
show us the nature of an organism better than the 
later stages. A frog is not an effete tadpole ; on the 
contrary, a tadpole is an immature frog. And so 
man's moral nature is not a corollary or appendage 
of brute sociability ; on the contrary again, animal 
sociability is a dim and imperfect prophecy of human 
morality and human society. 

Of course, if Darwin's doctrine of reason were un- 
impeachable, it would be idle to challenge his moral 
philosophy while admitting his view of the descent 
of man. But we find his philosophical basis very 
insecure. Darwin assumes that instinct is given as 
a fixed datum ; rational consciousness, when it super- 
venes, works out plans and methods, but does nothing 
to revise or remodel the inherited aim. Instinct plus 
reason form a mechanical sum in addition. Reason 
is a calculating faculty pure and simple. Instinct 



chap, xi "DARWINISM IN MORALS" 1 23 

remains what it was in the brute nature (social 
instinct for example, as the germ of morality) ; it now 
wields an instrument of incomparably greater power, 
but its own nature and its aims are unaltered. We 
shall have to give further study to this view of reason 
later on. Here we must simply affirm the counter 
position, that reason transforms and revolutionises 
everything. In this case as in many others, develop- 
ment means transformation. A man is not an 
ascidian, even if he is descended from one. Nor is 
human morality the pursuance of animal sociality 
with the resources of human intellect. No ; it is a 
new aim, as well as a new method ; on the theoretical 
side, reason; on the practical side, morality, strictly 
and properly so-called. As such, it has suppressed, 
is suppressing, and will suppress those evil things — 
evil at least between man and man, if not between 
beast and beast — which instinct tolerates or fosters. 
If, however, we take this view of the meaning of 
evolution, there seems no reason why the abstract 
formula of " Darwinism in Morals " should be fatal 
to the higher interests of mankind, or to the basis of 
Christian faith. 



CHAPTER XII 

DARWINISM IN POLITICS : BAGEHOT 

Applies Darwinism by analogy — Evolution transforms imperceptibly — 
By nerve tissue in our case ; but nothing depends on this assertion 
of use-inheritance by Bagehot; it is a mere illustration — Not ethno- 
logical, but political questions — Problems both of progress and of 
differentiation — 1st, Custom as the remedy for primitive wildness 
in the "fit" — Criticism — 2nd, Customs winnowed by the test of 
war — 3rd, Free discussion — Race blending, etc., as minor factors 
— Three limitations on the Darwinian principle in Bagehot's appli- 
cation of it. 

[Note B. On Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics — Incon- 
sistency between the different essays — One interesting hint] 

The next important application of Darwinian 
notions to social questions is found in Walter Bage- 
hot's Physics and Politics ; — a little book full of 
interest on every page, and still alive with sugges- 
tions after twenty-five years. It is or seeks to be 
truly Darwinian, dealing, as the title-page tells us, 
with "inheritance" and "natural selection," and 
trying to "apply them to political society." 

The author is profoundly impressed, first of all, 
with the transforming power which science attributes 
to evolutionary change. Things become absolutely 
different from what they were. Nay more ; this is 
true not merely of some things but of all. Every- 
thing is in motion. And therefore everything has 

124 



chap, xii DARWINISM IN POLITICS: BAGEHOT 125 

become, in the light of modern science, "an 
antiquity." 

Speaking more strictly of human or social evolu- 
tion, Mr. Bagehot makes a very strong statement of 
the part presumably played by nerve tissue in render- 
ing such evolution possible. No one, he thinks, 
will be able to understand evolution in history, if he 
has not this material basis of evolution before his 
eyes. In other words, we have here an act of adhe- 
rence to Spencer's position — to Spencer's even more 
than Darwin's — against attacks such as have more 
recently been made by Weismann. For we have 
here not merely an assertion of the inheritance of 
acquired qualities, but an assertion of the physical 
inheritance of the results of mental processes. 
Further, we find Bagehot here emphasising an 
element which Leslie Stephen — though apparently 
believing in it — was content to drop out of sight all 
through his ethical treatise. Further still, we observe 
that for the moment Bagehot is not transferring 
Darwinian ideas to a new sphere, and asking how 
they apply there, but rather showing us how politics 
are influenced by Darwinism in its direct bearing 
upon the physical basis of mind. Man is a political 
animal, but he is primarily an animal. We cannot 
appreciate how his politics evolve unless we have 
formed just ideas of the process by which he himself 
evolves. Still, in all this, Bagehot is only preparing 
the way for his special contribution, which consists 
rather in extending the biological analogy than in 
claiming a wide range for biology proper. In point 
of fact, he might drop out this illustration altogether ; 
he might surrender his strong belief in the inheri- 



126 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

tance of experience via the nervous system ; and yet 
the main lines of his book need not be changed. 

All through the discussion his problem, as he 
conceives it, has these two sides, physiological and polit- 
ical, but he declines to deal directly with the physio- 
logical questions involved. How have nations been 
differentiated ? We assume an original unity of the 
human race ; from whence then the differences ? 
Bagehot is to deal with the minor causes, which are 
mainly political. Beyond and behind their range, 
other very obscure causes must have been at work 
to separate, not nation from nation, but race from 
race ; to differentiate negroes or Mongolians from 
white men ; presumably we might add, to differen- 
tiate Aryans from Semites. But, apart from a single 
reference to views held by Mr. A. R. Wallace, 
Bagehot does not enter upon this question at all. 
Granted race evolution, he asks how political evolu- 
tion proceeds. Do we encounter in it the workings 
of inheritance and natural selection? If so, what 
forms do they take? 

But even within the political region two problems 
are entangled together — if, indeed, I ought not 
rather to say that there are two different ways of 
conceiving the one political problem. This double- 
ness of aspect or of parts is embarrassing ; yet it is a 
difficulty we often encounter as we follow evolution- 
ary discussions, especially those which bear upon 
man. Does evolution mean progress, or does it 
simply mean differentiation ? By wedding " Physics," 
i.e. biology, and " Politics," are we seeking to explain 
the cause of political changes or rather of political 
improvement? Parts of Bagehot' s book deal with 



chap, xii DARWINISM IN POLITICS: BAGEHOT 1 27 

the latter point, especially his closing chapters. On 
the other hand, are we simply trying to explain the 
origin, from one common stock, of the immensely 
divergent assemblage of national constitutions which 
history records or living experience manifests ? This 
question is also in his view. Perhaps we ought to 
say that he wishes to study both phases of his theme, 
but that he is chiefly interested in the laws of true 
progress. 

Before history, he tells us, there was a prehistoric 
age, before morals, a non-moral age. If man was 
created, he must have had everything to learn. If 
man was evolved from purely animal forms — this 
Bagehot seems to regard as probable, but as non- 
essential to his argument — there must have been an 
interregnum between the time when instinct guided 
action and the time when reason became effective. 
Instinct on the whole secures safety, but reason 
weakens instinct, and custom, which is the equivalent 
of instinct at a higher grade, which is the earliest 
and most important safeguard of rational beings, 
must have been very slowly and very gradually for- 
mulated. Primitive savages were like modern savages 
in almost all their defects ; they were ignorant, capri- 
cious, passionate ; but their minds cannot have been 
"tattooed over with customs" like the minds of their 
remote posterity, the savages of to-day. While civil- 
ised man is social, primitive man, according to Bage- 
hot, was a being no longer guided by animal instinct, 
but imperfectly human, and very hard to break to 
the sway of society. Most men were wild; many 
races were purely wild ; and the vital problem during 
the emergence of society was to secure the formation 



128 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

of a " cake of custom " which might keep savage 
nature in check. Good custom or bad might serve ; 
the quality of the custom was a secondary though 
doubtless very important point ; its existence was the 
main thing. " Any sort of government was better 
than none at all." But in this, as in so many matters, 
the first step was much the hardest. Once he had 
laid aside his primitive rudeness, the imitativeness of 
man made everything easy. Imitation continued old 
customs, imitation diffused attractive novelties. It was 
thus both a conservative and a progressive force, but 
it was oftenest at work in the service of inherited 
usage. Here then were the factors of social order — 
custom and imitation. Once the race became politi- 
cal it developed an overwhelming power of conserva- 
tism. Custom had made men what they were ; they 
dimly felt this and worshipped every custom with 
equal enthusiasm, the worst no less than the best. 
But indeed isolation was useful in early days. 
Jealousy of novel or foreign ways was a wise pas- 
sion while the social type was too weak to bear 
contact with other types. 

In the way of comment or criticism one need only 
here remark that almost everything in this eulogy of 
custom turns upon Bagehot's theory of the unsocial 
wildness of the first men, or, as he tends to translate 
that conception, on the theory that, when man was 
evolved, instinct went off duty before reason and 
custom came on duty. Probably that proposition is 
disputable. And the whole attempt to affirm how 
reason must have proceeded in entering a world 
that knew it not is perhaps an attempt to tran- 
scend the limits of possible knowledge, more 



CHAP, xii DARWINISM IN POLITICS: BAGEHOT 1 29 

truly so than many things which have been thus 
described. 

Custom being established, the next question to be 
faced is, how the cake of custom may be broken and 
progress inaugurated. Custom, and the rough natural 
selection of early ages, ensure stability ; they are the 
factors in social statics; but what are the factors in 
social dynamics ? For a long time the greatest 
selecting agency is war. Military nations prevail 
over those which are less effective upon the field of 
battle, and to a large extent imitation gradually 
diffuses the principles of the higher and conquering 
civilisation among the vanquished. For in a sense 
the conquering civilisation is higher. Reflection 
shows us that, up to a certain point, the best man 
wins in the fierce competition of war. The military 
virtues are correlated to other virtues besides conquest. 
Beyond a certain point, however, progress is not 
secured. War tests and develops the military virtues, 
but it does nothing to hinder the heavy weight of 
custom from crushing out the finer possibilities of 
human nature. On the contrary, as we know from 
Mr. Spencer, militarism is the natural ally of autocracy 
and of reaction ; it calls for a blind obedience. 
Therefore, to end this paragraph as we began it, we 
are called on by Bagehot to notice how very many 
civilisations have become stagnant; how very few 
have been the instances of progress ; how many 
beginnings that promised well have suffered a speedy 
arrest. In the same spirit another distinguished 
writer, Sir Henry Maine, has taught us that the bar- 
barian inroads may have been needed to save Europe 
from the fate of China. These positions are memor- 

K 



130 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

able in view of what we shall hear from Mr. Benjamin 
Kidd (speaking on the authority of Professor Weis- 
mann) that for every organism the choice lies between 
struggle, victory, and progress on the one hand, and 
continuous retrogression on the other hand. China 
has at least worn the appearance of stagnation for 
many ages. China seems to have evaded Mr. Kidd's 
dilemma. 

But, if war has a limited power of selection, and 
effects a certain amount of progress, the decisive 
step has been due twice over to the influence of free 
discussion in the sphere of government. The habit 
of political debate in the Greek democracies, the same 
habit afterwards as a tradition of the Teutonic peo- 
ples, kindled and enflamed the mental activity of 
civilised men, till discussion, like a forest fire, had 
spread to all the material within reach. Democracy 
is not needful for this effect. The so-called Greek 
democracies were really petty aristocracies of slave- 
holders. You may have as high a franchise as you 
like, yet, if free discussion prevails within the privi- 
leged circle, then the emancipating force is at work. 
Mere oratory may not educate. The graceful oratory 
of the Red Indians dealt with methods, not with 
principles, and effected nothing towards progress in 
civilisation. But, when political discussion deals 
with great topics, it has a marvellously stimulating 
and educating effect on the mind. That has been the 
chief factor in social dynamics. That has twice 
broken the cake of custom. And now the intellect is 
fully awake, and progress itself has become a tradition 
of the western world. 

In subordination to these great factors Bagehot 



chap, xii DARWINISM IN POLITICS: BAGEHOT 131 

notes others. For example, he dwells on the impor- 
tance of the blending of races. Such mixture, it is 
thought, frequently improves the breed, and so leads 
to evolutionary progress. But even if it results in no 
improvement — or even if it tends to deterioration — 
it may yield a new type, and so conduce to variety of 
result ; if not to progress, yet to differentiation. 

We take leave then of this most interesting little 
book with three remarks. First; it does not yet 
show us Darwinism in relation to ethics or even in 
relation to sociology in the stricter sense, but rather 
in relation to politics. Now in politics there can be 
no question that we have before us a spectacle of 
competition — pre-eminently, but by no means solely, 
in the fierce rivalries of actual war. And so the 
application of Darwinian ideas in this region is 
unquestionably lawful, if a trifle obvious. Secondly ; 
in spite of his references to the nervous system, 
Bagehot assumes inheritance mainly by the psychical 
and political forces of imitation and custom. Thirdly ; 
he does not to any great extent connect the other 
side of politics — progress, social dynamics — with 
natural selection in the strict sense. Progress as well 
as stability rests upon imitation and upon the possibil- 
ity of loans in culture. To a certain extent progress 
rests upon war — but not upon wars of extermination ; 
not, therefore, on elimination of the unfit and survival 
of none but the fittest. Mainly progress is due to 
the habit of political discussion, and to happy circum- 
stances giving that habit great effect. In other words, 
Bagehot's social dynamics centre round a purely 
political idea. Not the biological analogy but special 
historical knowledge has been his guide. Darwin 



132 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

has set him thinking, but Darwinism has not mastered 
or overmastered the course of his thought. This is 
not said by way of blame or disparagement, but in 
order that we may reach a precise view of the nature 
of Bagehot's contribution, and may understand how 
it differs from other contributions with which we have 
still to deal. 

Note B : On Professor Ritchie's " Darwinism and 

Politics " 

[Professor Ritchie's bright little book does not 
propose to apply Darwinism to the details of social 
life or history. It deals with the question whether 
the application holds good in principle — whether or 
not Darwinism really applies to politics. Unfortu- 
nately it is not easy to harmonise the teaching of the 
different essays. The bearing of the first essay is as 
follows : Whatever presumptions are established by 
a Darwinian view of the origin of man, there is no 
ground for believing that social progress necessarily 
implies struggle; reason has come in to change all 
things. But the drift of essays II. and III. is in 
quite a different direction : The analysis of evolu- 
tion by Darwinism is absolutely trustworthy, and may 
assuredly be extended to human society, " mutatis 
mutandis ! " This implies that reason has made only 
minute changes. Yet the first essay teaches that 
reason has equalised the efficiency of the two sexes, 
and again, that it has suspended the necessity for 
struggle. How much Darwinism is left if you elimi- 
nate struggle for existence ? 

There is one hint of some interest in essay I. — 



chap, xii "DARWINISM AND POLITICS" 1 33 

that reason, as embodied in governments, may achieve 
a better economy of material than is done by [" nat- 
ural selection " or] laissez faire. But whatever the 
value of this hint, it is not Darwinian. And the title 
promises Darwinism ; and that is what we are study- 
ing at this moment. 

Some further remarks on Prof. Ritchie's positions 
will be found in chapters xvii. and xx.] 



CHAPTER XIII 

DARWINISM IN ETHICS I PROFESSOR ALEXANDER 

Fusion of idealism and naturalism — Moral judgments are facts, but the 
assertion of free will is absurd — Criticism; capricious; ignores the 
content of moral judgments and the germ of a system in them — 
Punishment grouped with dynamics ? — Statics are truly, though im- 
perfectly, moral — Goodness is a two-fold " equilibrium " — This doc- 
trine is enforced against other definitions — In the Dynamics equilib- 
rium is revealed as endlessly changing, and is called " compromise " — 
Ideals compete like organisms for survival — Criticism; not (#) 
true Darwinian struggle, nor (6) true extinction — The new ideals 
are not wholly new — Ideals are complementary — So far as he Dar- 
winises he is false to morality 

Professor Alexander's Moral Order and Progress 
is a very full, interesting, and original discussion. Its 
character, as the sub-title indicates, is " an analysis of 
Ethical Conceptions." The general position of the 
author is that of one struck with the convergence of 
idealistic and naturalistic ethics in the light of evolu- 
tionism ; but, while coming himself from the camp of 
the idealists, Mr. Alexander is strongly inclined to 
seek a place in the left wing of the partially amalga- 
mated forces. All that is true or solid in idealist 
ethics is provided for, he thinks, in the biological 
scheme. As for intuitionalism, it may go packing ; 
there is no portion for it in the promised land of truth ; 
it is mere mischievous illusion. We have been told 
by some of Lord Beaconsfield's admirers that there 

134 



chap, xni DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 1 35 

was a great unity throughout his career, in spite of 
all apparent change — he always disliked the middle 
classes. Against them he appealed variously to the 
nobles and the poor, to Tory and Radical instincts. 
So it is to be with the typical bourgeois philosophy of 
intuitionalism. Idealists and empiricists are to agree 
sweetly in destroying it. Its excellent intentions shall 
not excuse it one cruel blow, in view of its hopeless 
and irritating limitations. 

Having affirmed so strongly the competency of 
naturalism, Mr. Alexander has to face a question 
which, in our judgment, presses hard upon all natu- 
ralistic ethics. What room is there for ethics at all 
upon the premises of naturalism ? What do we mean 
by speaking of right and wrong, of moral good and 
moral evil, in a world of blind laws and mere facts 
and necessary processes ? Mr. Alexander, like Mr. 
Stephen, faces the question and gives the same 
provisional answer. Primarily, we are dealing with 
acknowledged facts, viz. with those moral judgments 
which, as a matter of fact, are current. In the first 
instance, therefore, Mr. Alexander takes over moral 
opinion as he finds it, and, like Mr. Stephen, tells us 
he is concerned to analyse it rather than to verify it 
— to systematise it, as we might perhaps interpret, 
rather than to apply any more radical test. Self- 
consistency is indeed a legitimate test, though but a 
negative test of truth ; and if he had confined himself 
to requiring that morality should be self-consistent, 
coherent, systematic, Mr. Alexander could have done 
no possible injustice to the moral consciousness. As 
we read on, however, we feel that his provisional at- 
titude is very soon departed from. The utterances 



I36 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part ill 

of the moral consciousness are cut short — its dicta 
are edited or expurgated — with a view to securing 
harmony, not with each other, but with a determin- 
istic view of the universe borrowed from physics. 
True, the frontier of morality is extended a long way 
in certain directions. With admirable faithfulness 
Mr. Alexander reports that conscience passes its 
judgments on willed conduct — only on willed con- 
duct ; yet scarcely is this admitted when free will is 
mockingly expelled from the court unheard — free 
will, the one further truth which gives meaning and 
justification to our human habit of passing judgment 
only upon will. Why is free will exiled ? What pro- 
cured this order from the judge ? Morality did not 
require it ; conscience asked nothing of the kind ; 
victorious prejudice, and the tyranny of physical 
science, carried the day. That is not the way to 
provide our subject with a scientific frontier! It 
results in a haphazard frontier — pushed far on, at 
one point, to suit the requirements of our own posi- 
tion, but then cut short to suit the requirements of 
other people across the border. Mr. Alexander is 
loyal to the psychological fact that we judge only 
willed conduct ; he takes care to report it accurately ; 
but what does he make of it ? Stated in isolation, is 
it not meaningless ? 

We see now in how restricted a sense moral facts 
are admitted by Mr. Alexander. The moral con- 
sciousness is allowed to bear testimony ; " AB is an 
ethical conception ; " " CD is an ethical conception " 
— but that is all. The authority of conscience is good 
to that extent — and not an inch beyond. If we ask 
the further question, what is the meaning of this 



chap, xiii DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 1 37 

ethical conception AB ? conscience falters and grows 
embarrassed, or remits the matter for analysis to the 
laboratory of ethical science. From this point on- 
wards conscience is dumb, and Mr. Alexander acts 
as its proxy, or works up, as he judges good, the 
material with which it has furnished him. 

This criticism must not be misunderstood. We 
should not think for a moment of denying the rights 
and privileges of reflection, or of questioning its value. 
When moral opinion has done its utmost in the shape 
of healthy instinct, very much remains to be learned 
from the brooding meditative critic, who insists that 
we shall "see life steadily and see it whole," and who 
therefore brings our scattered thoughts into focus and 
tunes them together as a harmonious system. When 
that is faithfully done the moral philosopher is not 
the tyrant, but the minister atque interpres of con- 
science, carrying on its own work and giving it a 
higher perfection. He may indeed do more than 
this. He may provisionally call in question the 
teachings of conscience ; he may subject them to 
tests ; provided he recognises that conscience has 
its own contributions to make to any final synthesis. 
But all this describes something very different from 
Professor Alexander's treatment of the subject. We 
do not blame him for revising or modifying the dicta 
of moral instinct, but for the kind of revision he prac- 
tises, — one which ignores that the process of inter- 
pretation is begun by conscience itself; one which 
lays down the law upon questions of morals in obe- 
dience to non-moral principles ; one which treats 
the law thus laid down as decisive against the moral 
claims of free will. Conscience is invoked to supply 



138 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

our author with facts for manipulation ; it is allowed 
to do nothing more. 

We cannot attempt to follow out Mr. Alexander's 
interesting discussion in detail. We can only name 
a few points which seem specially noteworthy, either 
for their own sake, or in connection with the history 
of the appeal to biology for human guidance. 

The subject is explicitly divided into two main 
parts — a statical and a dynamical ; moral order, and 
moral progress ; in obvious dependence upon Comte. 
One must be allowed to express a doubt whether 
names and things exactly correspond to each other 
here. As a point of detail, it is astonishing that 
punishment should be discussed under moral progress. 
If there is any obstinately statical element in the life 
of society, surely it is penal law, which maintains 
what has been reached, but is grimly indifferent to 
further progress. When saints or martyrs challenge 
a law that has been outgrown, or that is downright 
bad, there may of course be progress through the 
punishment they bear — thanks to them, not to the 
law. In itself the law does not even then make for 
progress. Its preoccupation, then as always, is sta- 
bility. And the ordinary victim of penal law is much 
more likely to be affected by atavism than by " the 
prophetic soul of the great world brooding on things 
to come." What is he doing in this galley ? 

When one passes from details to principles, Mr. 
Alexander's grouping of his materials looks more and 
more disquieting. He is really not contrasting moral 
order with moral progress ; he is giving us, first, an 
analysis of morality in the abstract, apart from ques- 
tions of progress, but secondly a theory of progress, 



chap, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 1 39 

or rather of change, which sets morality at defiance. 
In the first half — thanks to his appeal, however 
strangely limited, to the moral consciousness — he is 
on moral ground ; the foundation is moral, whatever 
may be the character of the superstructure. In the 
second half he has moved off moral ground altogether. 
The first is a theory of morality from the inside, if 
not exactly from the heart of the subject ; the second 
is a theory of the changes in human opinion, a view 
taken from the outside of the moral process, and 
characterised by the airy indifference of the foreigner. 
In Part I. the analysis of the moral end leads to 
the result that goodness is an equilibrium, and one of 
a twofold order. For first, goodness is an equilibrium 
among the promptings or desires or actions of the 
individual ; and secondly, it is social, placing each man 
harmoniously with his fellows in an order of society. 
And this positive analysis is supported negatively by a 
destructive analysis of other views of the ethical end. 
To this extent therefore Mr. Alexander offers more 
proof in support of evolutionism in morals than Mr. 
Leslie Stephen gave us. Intuitionalism of course 
receives no attention. Intuitionalism holds that the 
good, like other primary elements of consciousness, 
cannot be decomposed, and neither can nor need be 
defined. It is hardly strange that one who is seeking 
a definition of the moral end should pass over such 
views in impatient silence. But, if intuitionalism is 
not discussed, a kindred position is faced when the 
definition of the end as perfection is brought under 
notice. This, says Mr. Alexander, gives no help. It 
carries us no further. Perfectly what should I be ? 
Perfectly good, of course. But I am asking you what 



140 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

goodness is ! You have told me nothing ; you have 
taken for granted the conception of goodness. Next, 
hedonism is discussed. Mr. Alexander dismisses as 
an over-refinement the idealist criticism, urged by 
T. H. Green or Mr. F. H. Bradley, according to which 
a sum of perishing pleasures is an impossibility. But 
he himself argues that pleasure cannot be the moral 
end, on the ground that there are ultimate irreducible 
qualitative differences between one kind of pleasure 
and another. Surely this does not seem altogether 
conclusive, especially since Mr. Alexander goes on to 
maintain that his own formula incorporates hedonism 
by insisting that some pleasures ought to be aimed at, 
viz. the pleasures of goodness. But there is no doubt 
that he is right, from the point of view of the moral 
consciousness, in holding that if pleasure enters into 
the end of [right] action, it cannot be pleasure as such 
but desirable pleasure, i.e. morally desirable pleasure. 
Lastly, Vitality is examined ; and Mr. Stephen is 
instructed that all that is true in this formula is cov- 
ered more exactly by the abstract formula, equilib- 
rium. 

So far as we have yet inspected this doctrine, it is 
evidently akin to the older evolutionism of Spencer 
or Leslie Stephen. One organism, or one set of 
forces, falls to be considered ; goodness is a harmony 
in the organism or among the forces; badness is dishar- 
mony. At first sight one thinks that Mr. Alexander 
has materially improved upon Mr. Stephen's posi- 
tion. With Mr. Stephen, the individual man and the 
social whole fall violently asunder. But Mr. Alexan- 
der knows of a twofold moral equilibrium, applying 
alike to man and to society. Also one observes the 



chap, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 14 1 

traces of Mr. Alexander's idealist schooling. For 
him, morality is still self-realisation or self-fulfilment. 
Unlike intuitionalists, he regards goodness, not as 
something added from outside to the natural motives 
of men, but as the correct working up of the raw 
material of character. It is true, Mr. Stephen, with 
his purely empiricist tendencies, has caught the same 
truth. But the truth deserves full acknowledgment 
wherever found. Assuming, as we are led to do, that 
the disorders in character are many, the order, only 
one, there seems no reason why we should quarrel 
with Mr. Alexander for speaking of equilibrium as 
the moral end, if he likes to do so. Following his 
own lead we might hint that a different formula did 
fuller justice to the real contents of the moral end ; 
but we should not condemn his formula as false. 

A very different light, however, is thrown back 
upon this definition from the second part of Mr. 
Alexander's treatise. In it we learn that there are 
many competing and successive types of morality — 
endlessly many. Goodness is not one, in contrast to 
the multitudinousness of evil and disorder. Goodness 
itself is no less protean. We must not hold that 
morality is the equilibrium of conduct ; each type of 
morality is an equilibrium. Without forestalling our 
discussion of the theory of moral progress, we notice 
now the bearing of this assertion, not simply on the 
theory of moral order, but on the very definition of 
morality. It had been proposed that we should de- 
fine morality as equilibrium. That definition is now 
robbed of its meaning. Is there any conduct at all 
which may not be said to seek an " equilibrium " — if 
only that of the simple equation, " Let me be on the 



142 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

top and every one else below " ? Matters are not 
improved but rather made worse when the word 
" compromise " slips out as a synonym for " equilib- 
rium." Is not almost everything a compromise — 
from some point of view ? The extortioner, the 
slayer of human lives, the cheat, " when he thinks of 
his opportunities," may, like Clive, be " astonished at 
his own moderation." You and I both claim some- 
thing ; half to me and half to you is a compromise ; 
but ninety-nine per cent to me and one per cent to 
you is also a compromise. I may even persuade 
myself that a hundred per cent to me is a com- 
promise, because I suffered you to get away with 
unrifled pockets. What possible light then is ob- 
tained by naming good conduct "a compromise"? 
A further objection remains. " Compromise " is the 
worst possible word for describing moral behaviour. 
Morality, as Mr. Alexander bears witness, imposes a 
law, and that law requires unconditional obedience. 
If we follow it out, our own nature will blossom into 
its true richness and fulness ; but for this the knife 
is as necessary as the watering can ; the path to 
moral self-development lies through self-sacrifice. 
Where is there room for talking of compromise in 
such a process ? The law indeed gives his due to 
each man, and also to each impulse. The "stern 
lawgiver " wears " the Godhead's most benignant 
grace " ; but no wrangling of private interests, no 
arbitrary delimitation of incompatible claims, will 
produce morality. In a word, morality involves 
order, equilibrium, peaceful settlement of competing 
claims ; but equilibrium — and still more plainly, 
compromise — neither includes nor leads to morality. 



chap, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 1 43 

Seek the higher and the lower will be added. Seek 
the lower — you lose all. We conclude therefore 
that Mr. Alexander's theory is neither true nor false 
but merely vague. 

The second half of the treatise deals with moral 
progress. The most interesting and novel part of 
this discussion is found in a doctrine laid down when 
treating of the origin of moral distinctions ; but, as 
there seems to be no reason why the doctrine should 
only be applied to the beginnings of moral progress, 
we shall treat it as covering the whole field. It sets 
before us a vision of competing moral ideals, and of 
the survival of the fittest. The process is illimitable ; 
there is no absolutely best ; every good, while it is 
valid, or to those for whom it is valid, is also the 
best ; and as continuous evolution and adjustment go 
on, the moral ideal must vary or be renewed in cor- 
respondence with the facts of human progress. This 
assertion is treated as showing us the prolongation of 
the Darwinian struggle into new and higher regions. 
If men do not habitually struggle against each other, 
to the point of extinction for the vanquished and 
solitary survival for the victor, ideals do so ; and the 
" creed outworn " succumbs, while the ideal which is 
up to date survives and predominates — for a season. 
So it always has been, so it always will be. 

Such constructions of ideas seem very much akin 
to primitive mythology. Here too we have a meta- 
phor, and here too the speaker does not know or 
does not remember that it is a metaphor, but treats 
it as a revelation of absolute scientific truth. The 
author uses most of the implications and inferences 
connected with Darwin's analysis, and uses them 



144 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

with dogmatic confidence. He never fully inquires 
what limits attend their use. Of course, it is possi- 
ble to represent progress in thought as due to a com- 
petition between various types or ideals. Let us grant 
this in the fullest way. Such language is lawful ; it 
may be suggestive and valuable. But metaphors are 
treacherous things ; they leave out at least half the 
truth. 

Natural selection takes place, or is alleged to take 
place, through the struggle for existence, because 
there is not room for all to live and be nourished 
side by side. Every living organism cannot live out 
its full time and transmit its peculiarities to offspring. 
But what forbids moral ideals to exist side by side ? 
Truth to tell, they have done so in the past, and do 
so yet — in different lands, or even in one land — in 
different minds, or even in one mind. The struggle 
of ideals is much less keen than the biological strug- 
gle for existence, at least at starting, and in its lower 
stages ; afterwards its working may become swift 
and telling. Ideals compete against each other in 
human minds. They commend themselves not by 
any physical superiority, but by their attractiveness 
or by their truth. 

Secondly, there is a difference mentioned by Mr. 
Alexander himself. Defeat here, in the struggle of 
ideals, does not imply the extinction of the persons 
holding inferior moral conceptions. The ideals per- 
ish ; the persons who held them are usually con- 
verted to a higher way of thinking. Surely here we 
have an open admission that the struggle between 
ideals is not a struggle of the Darwinian order. 
Progress according to Darwin is dependent on the 



chap, xni DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 145 

weeding out of the unfit. Progress according to Mr. 
Alexander is usually secured by a conversion from 
error to truth. It is a secondary result that errors 
disappear. And those who were formerly in the 
grasp of error do not die, but believe the truth and 
live. 

Yes, it may be said, the errors die. Is not that 
enough to justify the analogy ? Let us look then a 
little more closely at the alleged mechanism of moral 
progress. Variation constitutes, says Mr. Alexander, 
a new species or new ideal, before which, after a sea- 
son of struggle, old species or old ideals perish. Does 
not this statement ignore the fundamental continuity 
of life throughout all evolution ? The "new species " 
is an old species modified. The new ideal is not 
wholly new ; it is the fuller evolution or unfolding of 
the old, what Hegel called its truth. 

For of ideals above all things we may declare that 
they do not struggle blindly against each other, or 
exclude each other. They are not physically distinct 
things, mutually incompatible, mutually repulsive. 
Was there ever an ideal with a lower programme 
than that of the supreme Teacher, " Not to destroy, 
but to fulfil " ? The point may be illustrated by a 
quotation from John M'Leod Campbell: " An early 
member of the Society of Friends, writing to a 
brother who was a Roman Catholic, says, ' Your re- 
ligion and my religion must be the same, in so far as 
we have religion, for there is but one religion.' This 
true and deep word," adds Campbell, "we are gradu- 
ally learning to understand." May we not even more 
confidently say the same thing of moral ideals ? There 
is but one ideal. The various forms in which, histori- 



146 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

cally, the ideal presents itself are not distinct and rival 
species, but elements in the final synthesis — yearning 
aspirations after it — sketches, rough and rude at the 
best, yet instinct with life, and all representing one 
great pattern seen in the mount. Would an ideal kill 
another ideal if it could ? I do not ask, would an 
idealist kill an idealist ? That indeed is " another 
story " ; but does the ideal itself aim at extermination 
and destruction ? Mr. Alexander tells us that the 
rivals often blend in a " compromise." Surely, once 
again, the victory of truth is no compromise between 
opposite extremes, but something higher than either, 
in which all that is best in both the rivals lives on and 
flourishes. And the tertium quid at least may be due 
to a victory of truth. 

We conclude then that the application of Darwin- 
ism to competing moral ideals breaks down all along 
the line. For, first, what is described to us is not a 
process of natural selection by means of a struggle 
for existence ; and, secondly, so far as Mr. Alexander 
does assimilate moral ideals to competing organisms, 
he falsifies the facts. He has not really shown us an 
extension of Darwinian struggle into a higher region, 
but something radically different — something de- 
scribed by him more or less suggestively, but also 
more or less inaccurately, in Darwinian language. 
Progress by struggle — this morality thrusting down 
that morality and reigning in its stead — is not exhib- 
ited in the facts of history to any one who can look 
ever so little below the surface. Moral progress is 
much better described from Mr. Stephen's point of 
view as one great orderly evolution of human thought 
and life. Mr. Alexander sometimes uses similar Ian- 



chap, xin DARWINISM IN ETHICS: ALEXANDER 1 47 

guage ; but if such language were meant in full 
earnest it would be necessary to cease speaking of 
the limitlessness or indefiniteness of moral change. 
We may be baffled and bewildered by the course 
of moral evolution. Many a time good but timid 
men have regarded change and even advance in 
moral conduct or ideas as pure wanton iconoclasm. 
But it was not so ; it was inwardly continuous with 
what went before. And, although philosophy itself 
must fail if it seeks to forecast the morality of a dis- 
tant future, yet the future form will grow out of the 
present, and, when it comes, men will see in it once 
more how wisely and how surely God fulfils Himself. 
To abandon that hope is to abandon morality and all 
that makes us human. 



CHAPTER XIV * 

REACTION FROM DARWINISM J HUXLEY 

Reaction as to ethics — Due to the Vision of struggle and pain — Not 
sympathy, but justice is essential — It must suspend outright the cos- 
mic process — Older evolutionism (Greece, India) gave no guidance 
— Criticism; nature and spirit are opposed — Yet connected, and 
reason fulfils the cosmic process by transforming it } 

It will readily be divined that it is in a special sense 
we connect the name of Huxley with reaction from 
Darwinism. From the time when he was converted 
to the new views, Huxley was perhaps their most brill- 
iant and successful advocate, both in scientific circles 
and as a populariser, speaking to the world of readers. 
Yet, in regard to ethics, he was continually restive. 
The Romanes lecture for 1893 is only the most delib- 
erate among many striking utterances of his, tending 
in that direction. His thesis runs to the following 
effect, that evolutionary science has done nothing for 
ethics ; that on the contrary men only become ethical 
as they set themselves against the principles embodied 
in the evolutionary process of the animal world. Far 
from regarding evolution as the master-key to ethics, 
Huxley insists that the two terms are irreconcilable. 

Plainly, Huxley has considered only one possible 
form of union between evolution and ethics. For 
him evolution means Darwinism ; the struggle for ex- 

148 



chap, xiv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: HUXLEY 1 49 

istence which is believed to have dominated the plant 
and animal kingdoms. And for him the union of 
evolution with ethics means not analogy but identity ; 
it means that man, the individual organism, is held to 
become moral by succeeding in the struggle for exist- 
ence — a sufficiently startling paradox. Huxley makes 
no explicit reference to Spencer's formula, tracing a 
single harmonious process, right back to the primeval 
nebula and right on to moralised man. He is willing 
to generalise evolution as much as you please, but it 
seems to him that there is a seriously novel element 
introduced at one point in the process, cutting it as it 
were in two. " When the cosmopoietic energy works 
through sentient beings there arises among its other 
manifestations that which we call pain or suffering." 
And suffering is most intense in man, especially as he 
rises in the scale of civilisation, "under those condi- 
tions which are essential to the full development of 
his noblest powers." 1 Animal struggle runs on into 
human struggle, but such struggle is immoral. We 
must not wantonly add to the pain suffered by our 
fellows ; we must " let the ape and tiger die." The 
Spencerian formula — so we may read between the 
lines — makes no room for those elements which, to 
Huxley's mind, are of real moral significance. As for 
Comte's attempt to view social life as the evolution 
of one orderly and peaceful organism, or as to Mr. 
Leslie Stephen's gloss upon that attempt, or as to Pro- 
fessor Alexander's bloodless and well-nigh painless 
Darwinism in the shape of competing ethical types, 
Huxley says nothing. He cannot separate evolution 
from the cruel Darwinian struggle in its plain and 

1 p. 10. 



150 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

literal sense. He puts ethics and evolution as far 
asunder as the poles. We might almost style him a 
valuable if unexpected recruit to the cause of Miss 
Frances Power Cobbe. 

Darwin of course he knows by heart ; and Darwin's 
easy-going ethics felt none of his difficulties. How 
does he answer Darwin's proposal to deduce moral- 
ity from sociability plus intelligence ? Primarily, it 
would seem, by emphasising jitstice as the moral 
ideal rather than sympathy. Sociability might con- 
ceivably explain the rise of sympathy, but not of a 
sense of justice. "Wolves," he says, " could not 
hunt in packs except for the real though unexpressed 
understanding that they should not attack one another 
during the chase. The most rudimentary polity is a 
pack of men living under the like tacit or expressed 
convention ; and having made the very important 
advance upon wolf society, that they agree to use the 
force of the whole body against individuals who vio- 
late it, and in favour of individuals who observe it." 
Out of this convention arises a sense of justice, within 
the human pack; and justice is gradually deepened 
into righteousness. Now certainly such a conception 
of the moral ideal is not so easily fitted on to an 
evolutionary process as a more purely altruistic con- 
ception of goodness. Darwin thought sympathy or 
comradeship the chief point in ethics. Huxley 
swears by justice. He is tempted to call nature 
unjust ; he is sure that it is non-just. 

Once again, in a note, he returns to this point. 
Having by that time formulated the evil of cosmical 
nature not simply as pain, but as competition or 
struggle, he adverts to the fact that packs of wolves, 



chap, xiv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: HUXLEY 151 

hives of bees, and all social or gregarious creatures 
have suspended the struggle within their own com- 
munity. "To this extent," he admits, "the cosmic 
process begins to be checked by a rudimentary 
ethical process, which is, strictly speaking, part of 
the former, just as the * governor ' in a steam-engine 
is part of the mechanism of the engine." l This 
represents the sum total of the concessions which 
he would make to those like Messrs. Geddes and 
Thomson or the late Henry Drummond, who allege 
that Nature is not wholly red in tooth and claw, but 
that a principle of love is gradually disclosed and 
made predominant as we ascend the evolutionary 
scale. He grants that the wicked process of strug- 
gle is partially, slightly, very slightly checked, and 
checked by justice ; but, in the main, cosmical nature 
is full of struggle, and, from our human point of 
view, full of wickedness. 

The rest of the lecture does not add very much to 
these essential ideas. It verifies them by tracing 
former evolutionary thought in India and Greece. 
Indian wisdom regarded all things as embraced in an 
evolutionary process extending through aeon after 
aeon, and life upon life ; but it held this process to be 
downright bad and unhappy. Buddhism, its most 
characteristic expression, rested on a pessimistic view 
of the world ; such pessimism may have been one- 
sided, but its existence proves how little a belief in 
cosmic evolution did, in those days, to guide men as 
to their personal conduct. The cosmic process said 
" Live ! " The enlightened one said " Extinguish 
yourselves I " In Greece, the ethic of the Stoics was 

1 p. i97- 



152 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

alleged to be connected with their Pantheistic evolu- 
tionism ; but Huxley contends that it was really per- 
fectly independent of its speculative background; 
and that is very likely true. Coming down to modern 
times, he complains that discovery of " the evolution 
of ethics " has led men, in much confusion of thought, 
to preach an " ethics of evolution " ; whereas no such 
thing exists. Good of course has been evolved — but 
so has evil ; beauty has arisen in evolution — and 
ugliness too ; what survives after struggle is " fittest 
to survive," but not necessarily best or noblest. 
Briefly, cosmical and ethical tendencies are opposite. 
We human beings have to develop our own ideas of 
justice ; the bad, blind world can neither guide nor 
help us. In the past, struggle was of service when 
it gave man domain over the creatures (as theologians 
express it) — a curious hint. But now the remainders 
of struggle poison man's higher life. 

Perhaps this is seasonable discourse. After all, 
nature and spirit are different things, and, if philoso- 
phy drops below pantheism into downright material- 
ism and atheism, then too probably it will undermine 
morality. Nevertheless we must not exaggerate the 
difficulties of the case, or leap prematurely to the 
sorry conclusion that nature is in opposition to mo- 
rality. We are not obliged to rush into either extreme. 
Because we hesitate to recognise evolution as the key 
to ethics, we are not bound to regard evolution as 
anti-ethical. Huxley seems very one-sided when he 
draws a sharp contrast between the best and those 
fittest to survive. Bagehot and Mr. Leslie Stephen 
teach a different lesson. Among human societies it 
is probably fair to assume that in the majority of 



chap, xiv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: HUXLEY 1 53 

cases the most moral are the strongest. So far as 
that is true of states or of individuals, the " blind " 
cosmic process does not oppose morality, but acts in 
its service. The difficulty is at least attenuated. 

A fuller answer to Huxley's perplexities regarding 
the moral bearings of evolution is to be found in a 
better view of reason. Morality is a new thing in 
the creation with the advent of rational man, yet not 
wholly new. It is the transformation and perfecting 
of animal ethics — not the simple inversion of the 
cosmic process. But it is a highly significant trans- 
formation. Pain also is transformed by the advent 
of reason. Even in the animal world, presumably, 
pain is outweighed by pleasure, Huxley himself being 
witness. In man, however, pain assumes a new mean- 
ing. It becomes an element in moral development. 
How then can the presence of pain brand the cosmos 
as evil ? The kindred charge, that struggle is alto- 
gether evil from the moral point of view, will come 
before us again in the next and subsequent chapters ; 
we trust there are reasons for repelling that charge 
also. Lastly, we observe that a more intelligent con- 
ception of reason corrects Huxley's position as to the 
supremacy of man. Mastery of the animals is natural 
to mankind. It is no mere accident, due to man's 
share in the cruel cosmic struggle. It is man's right. 
It forms part of his equipment for that which lies 
before him, — the moral struggle to which the cosmic 
struggle gives place, the moral advance and moral 
achievement which are to crown the long and strange 
story of this earth. 



CHAPTER XV 



REACTION FROM DARWINISM : DRUMMOND'S " ASCENT 

OF MAN " 



His precursors — His sympathy for Spencer — His Comtist terminology 
— Seeks a biological basis tor altruism — Corrects Darwin — Not like 
Miss Cobbe — Largely like Huxley — But seeks a fairer statement 
of the facts — Brings in a second biological function (out of three !), 
viz. reproduction — Wallace on the selection of reason — Leads up 
to the doctrine of "Arrest of the Body" — Cf. Clelland on the 
human skull — Emphasis on maternity and weakness of human 
infant — Criticism; "egoism" and its struggle purely evil? — Or 
male sex with its justice ? — Is domesticity = sociality? — Has Drum- 
mond shown a factor in progress? — A better philosophy claims 
all nature for God 

I have chosen the Ascent of Man to represent the 
more conscious and definite reaction from unmodified 
or unbalanced theories of natural selection, not be- 
cause its author was the first or the only writer to 
champion such a reaction, but because he has given 
us its fullest statement, and because everything of 
Drummond's commanded at once a very wide popu- 
larity. For another reason he interests us, because 
he speaks as a Christian believer and thinker, — 
almost as a Christian apologist. He himself con- 
fesses obligations to many predecessors ; first, 
perhaps, to John Fiske, as we shall note in due 
course ; most largely and definitely to The Evolution 
of Sex by Professor Geddes and Mr. J. Arthur Thom- 

i54 



chap, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND 1 55 

son. These last writers, like Drummond, are con- 
sciously dissenting from Darwin, — consciously put- 
ting forward amendments to his statement of things, 
and not only to his statement of the basis of morals, 
but to his scientific formulation of the process of 
evolution itself. Morality is to be found somewhere 
in the region of sex. Struggle for life is a fact, but 
not the whole fact ; it is balanced by struggle for 
the life of others. Yet those who so speak are them- 
selves evolutionists, — themselves Darwinians. They 
accept struggle for existence as a great fact and po- 
tent cause of progress. They deny it to be the only 
fact ; and occasionally they are found denying that 
it is the only cause of progress ; but that topic is very 
lightly touched upon. Hence perhaps, in part, one's 
perplexity, when one seeks to estimate the value of 
this correction of Darwin's theories. 

With the wider Spencerian doctrine of evolution 
Drummond takes little to do. Yet he seems to as- 
sume its truth, or the truth of something of the same 
nature. His lyrical outbursts of praise at the thought 
of evolutionary science refer to something much more 
extensive than any view of the origin of species. 
Speaking of " evolution in general," he tells us that 
" Evolution is a Vision, . . . which is revolutionising 
the world of nature and of thought." When the 
workers of science had whispered the name " Evolu- 
tion," " henceforth their work was one, science was 
one, the world was one, and mind, which had discov- 
ered the oneness, was one." *■ Again somewhat later 
we read, " Nature in vertical section offers no break 
or pause or flaw." To study it in horizontal section 

1 Ascent of Man, p. I. 



156 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

" is to study a hundred unrelated sciences — sciences 
of atoms, sciences of cells, sciences of souls, sciences 
of societies ; to study it vertically is to deal with one 
science — evolution." 1 All this points to Spencer's 
philosophy, or a cosmic philosophy of a similar 
type. Yet such a system is nothing but ornamental 
scenery, hung up in the background of Mr. Drum- 
mond's atelier. His references to it during his dis- 
cussion are of the slightest. Close to the end of 
his book 2 there is a whimsical attempt to trace the 
cosmic principle of love down into the inorganic 
world, and back to the nebulous cloud out of which 
natural law is said to have evolved all things. 
Chemical affinity is the supposed representative of 
the psychical principle of love, grouping the ele- 
ments of nature in close union! However, the 
author does not seem perfectly easy in his own 
mind as to this suggestion, or thoroughly in earnest 
with it. On at least two other occasions he quotes 
Spencerian language in a tone of discipleship. " The 
first work of evolution always is, as we have seen, to 
create a mass of similar things — atoms, cells, men; 
and the second is to break up that mass into as many 
different kinds of things as possible. Aggregation 
masses the raw material, collects the clay for the 
potter ; differentiation destroys the featureless monot- 
onies as fast as they are formed, and gives them 
back in new and varied forms." 3 Again: " Accord- 
ing to evolutional philosophy there are three great 
marks or necessities of all true development — Ag- 
gregation, or the massing of things ; Differentiation, 
or the varying of things; and Integration, or the 

1 Ascent of Man, p. 59. 2 Ibid. p. 433. 3 Ibid. p. 320. 



chap, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND 1 57 

reuniting of things into higher wholes. All these 
processes are brought about by sex more perfectly 
than by any other factor known." 1 Except for these 
passing salutations, however, there is no appeal to the 
laws of physical or sub-organic evolution. We are 
bidden indeed follow nature; we are bidden throw 
ourselves into the current of evolution; but it is ani- 
mated nature that is to be our guide; the nature 
which Darwin studied will teach us rightly — if we 
a little readjust the formula in which Darwin summed 
up his results. 

Going back a step farther, from Spencer to Comte, 
we cannot but be struck with the extraordinary close- 
ness of discipleship manifested by Drummond. If 
Comte started the process of naturalistic study of 
duty under the flag of sociology, Drummond accepts 
the whole programme. The appeal to history dis- 
appears; with all his varied culture that was not in 
Drummond's line. But the appeal to biology stands ; 
the conception of altruism as a synonym for virtue 
stands firm ; the conception of sociology as an authori- 
tative science, growing out of biology, is accepted in 
so many words. " Every earnest mind is prepared to 
welcome" sociology, "not only as the coming science, 
but as the crowning Science of all the Sciences, the 
Science indeed for which it will one day be seen 
every other science exists. What it waits for mean- 
time is what every science has had to wait for, ex- 
haustive observation of the facts and ways of Nature. 
Geology stood still for centuries waiting for those 
who would simply look at the facts. . . . Sociology 
has had its Werners; it awaits its Huttons. The 

1 Ascent of Man, pp. 336, 337. 



158 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

method of sociology must be the method of all the 
natural sciences. It also must go and see the world 
making, not where the conditions are already ab- 
normal beyond recall, or where man, by irregular 
action, has already obscured everything but the con- 
ditions of failure, but in lower Nature which makes 
no mistakes, and in the fairer reaches of a higher 
world, where the quality and the stability of the 
progress are guarantees that the eternal order of 
Nature has had her uncorrupted way." 1 

Most noteworthy perhaps, in comparison with 
Comte, is the attempt to justify the definition of 
virtue as " altruism " by some biological considera- 
tions. We shall speak more in detail of this pres- 
ently. If it should stand, would it not be another 
great stroke of luck for Comte? or, ought I to say, a 
further vindication of his prophetic insight? He did 
not foresee the evolutionary doctrine of the origin of 
species ; he even deprecated such theorising. Yet 
the inquiry has gone forward, and the doctrine has 
been promulgated, and has set everybody using bio- 
logical language. So too Comte did not think of 
justifying his favourite virtue of altruism by his 
favourite science of biology; yet that also has now 
been tried ; and if the views for which Drummond is 
champion hold their ground, that also will have been 
accomplished. One can only repeat once more that 
it is extraordinary to find a Christian thinker such as 
Drummond casting in his lot so unreservedly with the 
programme of naturalistic science. 

It is from Darwin, however, that the new discussion 
takes its departure. Its divergence from Darwinism 

1 Ascent of Man, p. 57. 



chap, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM : DRUMMOND 1 59 

is, in its own opinion, its most important feature. Let 
us look then for a moment at the peculiarities of 
Darwinism. All living species have been marked off 
from each other, and given a standing ground in 
nature, by the working of natural selection upon 
minute and apparently casual variations. The means 
of selection has been the ceaseless process of struggle 
for existence. At a certain point in this evolutionary 
process we have foreshadowings of morality when 
gregariousness appears, and when social sympathies 
begin to claim a place in animal life. Such limitation 
of the struggle for existence marks the dawn of 
morality. Henceforth sociality has only to develop 
its latent powers, and to call in the strong help of 
intelligence, and we have morality full blown. How- 
ever, the struggle for existence is not terminated ; it is 
only limited or modified. Competition does not go 
on within the social group ; " dog does not bite dog ; " 
but the groups still compete with each other. Moral- 
ity and immorality are both of them natural products. 
Evolution yields them both ; they are both with us to 
this day in the strangest blending. Darwin, being 
neither philosopher, nor moralist, but a student of 
facts and a seeker of natural laws, was content to 
publish his views of origin and process without in- 
quiring very deeply into the probable consequences 
of such views in their bearing upon morality. 

The first objection taken was by Miss Cobbe, speak- 
ing as an intuitionalist. She complained that moral- 
ity had no more sacredness, no more binding force, if 
it were true that conscience was a simple remainder 
of brute tendencies, useful to the species, but having 
no ideal sanction. That objection we have ventured 



l60 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

to overrule. Provided only a sufficiently deep view 
of intelligence or reason be held, — provided we see 
clearly that reason transforms, perfects, makes new, 
what it seems to inherit from brute nature, — we need 
not be afraid for morality though it should universally 
be taught that morality came into being by slow and 
gradual fashioning of brute impulse. 

A somewhat different objection is in the view of 
Huxley and Drummond, — not the origin of con- 
science, not the inheritance of moral instinct from 
brutes, but the swamping (as it were) of moral instinct 
in the great current of cosmic process, regarded as a 
struggle for existence. If all nature struggles blindly 
and selfishly, what should man be but a " strugforli- 
feur " like the villain in Daudet's novel ? If reason, so 
we may interpret the difficulty in the light of Mr. Ben- 
jamin Kidd's work, the destined goal of our present 
study — if reason teaches man that the whole ani- 
mated cosmos has been and is controlled by a strug- 
gle for existence, and by that struggle has been 
pushed onward and upward, what can man do but 
reverently bow down before blind selfishness, and 
practise it in his own life ? Mr. Huxley, a man of 
science among the moralists, a Saul among the 
prophets, advancing boldly like Athanasius contra 
mundutn, preached the absolute opposition of human 
morality to cosmic process, and called on his fellow- 
men to be moral in spite of the nature of things, the 
cruel, selfish, pain-dealing nature of things, from 
which we of the human race have arisen. 

Mr. Drummond and others agree with Huxley and 
the " strugf orlifeur " as to the effect of Darwin's 
views. But they argue that Darwin's views are one- 



chap, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND l6l 

sided. They ask us to define nature more exactly. 
And they fall back upon biology and its categories in 
making their new survey of the cosmic process. 

Biology, they tell us, has two main functions, nutri- 
tion and reproduction. There is indeed a third bio- 
logical function, co-relation ; but no account is taken 
of it, in order "to avoid confusing the immediate 
issue " ; 1 surely a rather airy fashion of dealing with 
the authority of science ! It is indeed hard to see 
how and where the omitted function is ever to gain 
a hearing for itself in the new ethic, based upon the 
true biology. For the two functions already in evi- 
dence seem between them to cover the whole ground. 
" Nutrition" and "reproduction," the "hunger " and 
" love " of Schiller's witty stanza, claim the whole of 
life as theirs in joint tenure. The struggle for exist- 
ence belongs to the first function ; it is a struggle 
for nutrition ; reproduction, with its " other-regard," 
manifests itself in struggle for the life of others. 
The male sex stands for the first ; the female sex for 
the second. Out of the one arises egoism ; out of the 
other altruism. In their lowest germs these two 
physiological forces are held to have in themselves 
and to make manifest the prophecy of their final 
moral result. Even in reproduction by fission, when 
a low organism overtaxed by the claims of nutrition 
upon its existing surface splits in two and becomes 
two organisms, — even there Drummond thought he 
could see the Divine law of sacrifice worked into the 
very fabric of the animal world. But without press- 
ing such doubtful points we find him urging that 
sociality and self-sacrifice grow more and more mani- 

1 Ascent of Man, p. 17. 
M 



1 62 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

fest as evolution makes farther and farther advances, 
a plain revelation (he thinks) that morality, the per- 
fecting of "altruism," is the goal of the entire cosmic 
process. 

There are two points of special interest in Drum- 
mond's statement of evolution. We may dwell 
shortly upon both. Even if the first does not directly 
elucidate the alleged new conception of the evolution- 
ary process, it is important in connection with views 
that have still to be considered. 

The point in question is styled by Drummond " the 
arrest of the body." It seems to follow upon a contri- 
bution of Dr. A. R. Wallace's, which is very highly 
praised by Mr. Fiske. In answer to the question, 
How was natural selection able to differentiate the 
rational species of mankind from the brute tribes ? or 
Why did not reason die out as soon or as often as it 
emerged ? Dr. Wallace replied that reason was pre- 
served or was selected as soon as it became sufficient 
in amount to constitute a greater advantage in the 
struggle tlian any physical superiority. Upon this a 
previous question may arise. How was reason, hith- 
erto unfavoured by the selecting agency, able to leap 
to that point of magnitude and importance ? That is 
a difficulty which besets the doctrine of natural 
selection all along the line, unless the admission is 
made that variation may proceed per saltum. How- 
ever, in regard to the origin of reason, the difficulty is 
met tant bien que mal by treating reason alternately 
as identical with animal intelligence, and as some- 
thing wholly new. When the origin of human reason 
is made the subject of discussion, it is spoken of as 
a new and advantageous variety ; when the difficulty 



chap, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND 1 63 

of its quantity or amount is referred to, it is treated 
as a slight improvement upon those lesser amounts 
of intelligence which are found among the highest 
of the lower animals. The muscular ape survived the 
feeble ape, and the clever ape survived the stupid 
one. The ape which was muscular but stupid, and 
the ape which was clever but feeble, ran perhaps a 
dead heat ; but both of them were distanced a great 
way by the ape which was at once muscular and 
clever. At last, however, from one of the clever 
apes was born one cleverer still, one that deserved to 
be called rational, to be called human. And hence- 
forth the future lay with him. He might be healthy 
or he might be feeble, but his endowment of reason 
made him more than a match for all the apes, 
more than a match for everything, unless another 
human child of the apes was evolved, who had the 
advantage of being more vigorous than the first, 
while equally rational. In that case the newcomer 
must be king ! Of the two endowments, however, — 
and this is Dr. Wallace's point, — reason is the 
stronger. As soon as reason has become the thing 
best worth preserving by natural selection, rational 
beings survive. As soon as a rational race estab- 
lishes itself, we may be sure that reason is the most 
important of all its helps in the struggle for existence. 
To this contribution of Mr. Wallace's, Drummond 
adds the remark that the advent of reason involves the 
arrest of the body. Natural selection, it has been im- 
plied, is turning its attention to the mind. Drummond 
asks us to consider how this affects bodily evolution. 
It will terminate physical or animal progress. Man 
has no more need of an improved body ; he uses im- 



164 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

proved rational methods. In particular he supple- 
ments his body by the use of tools. But if man adds 
new resources to the resources of his body, he also 
counteracts many of its defects, e.g. he counteracts 
defective eyesight by the use of spectacles. There is 
a danger here ; for it is implied that natural selection 
does not kill off defective human types as it kills off 
defective animal types. We shall even be told by 
Weismann that, natural selection ceasing to operate, 
we ought to postulate not merely the arrest of the body, 
but its retrogression. Man might not retrograde as a 
whole ; body phis reason he might become a more 
effective creature in civilised times than he was in 
savage or barbarous ages ; but what of his body ? 
Confessedly, its advance has been arrested. Is it not 
inevitable that it should have receded, as civilisation 
has been developed by reason ? If we tried to verify 
this suggestion by a reference to facts, we should prob- 
ably meet with a good deal of evidence on both sides. 
Except the few professional athletes, civilised men are 
poor creatures physically in comparison with the higher 
savages. Whole faculties have gone amissing, and 
others have left the merest aborted remnants. Yet 
the civilised man displays much physical toughness in 
the ordeal of disease, while the " noble savage " 
breaks down. 

Before leaving this point for the present, we ought 
to refer to its bearing on the question of man's place 
in nature. Is man the highest possible product of 
terrestrial evolution ? That is plainly affirmed by Mr. 
Fiske ; and the same view is supported by Professor 
Cleland of Glasgow, 1 on more specially anatomical 

1 As cited by Drummond, Ascent of Man, p. 144. 



CHAP, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND 1 65 

grounds, viz. that the human skull has been modified 
absolutely as far as is possible in favour of brain. If 
the " crowning race " wish to have much larger brains 
than the Europeans of to-day, they must do without 
noses, which would be very awkward for them, not 
merely from aesthetic considerations. 

The second point of special interest in Drum- 
mond's statement is the " evolution of a mother." 
While sex is the region in which morality is supposed 
to be concentrated, and while the female sex stand 
for goodness and altruism in contrast to male egoism 
and badness, Drummond makes it plain that morality 
first shows itself not in love for the mate, but in love 
and care for the offspring. That is true for the 
mother; in course of time it becomes true for the 
father. Eventually romantic love between the sexes 
comes as a long-delayed climax. Rather sentimen- 
tally Drummond points out that even plants are 
classed scientifically by a reference to the reproduc- 
tive process ; that all the finest foods, milk, fruit, 
grain, occur in nature for the sake of reproduction, 
either animal or vegetable ; that the highest animals 
are named from the function of the highest physical 
motherhood, mammalia. More noteworthy is the 
argument, originally Fiske's, that the still higher 
development of human society, and with it of human 
morality, is due to the feebleness of infancy. The 
prolonged helplessness of human infancy kept the 
family together, and gave depth and constancy to 
family relationships. What again was the reason for 
that helplessness of babyhood ? The complexity of 
the processes gone through by an adult brain in ra- 
tional life. Animals, even the highest of the lower 



1 66 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

animals, have comparatively few lessons to learn. 
Their nervous system is always repeating the same 
combinations. These grow stable by habit, and the 
young creature is early emancipated from the care of 
its parents. Not so is it with mankind. Here the 
elaborate education of the nervous system must be a 
slow process. During its long course pity, tender- 
ness, love tremble into consciousness ; a mother is a 
mother indeed ; man is growing human. 

Such an outline is the theory. What are we to say 
of it ? 

Does Drummond mean us to understand, like Hux- 
ley or like the Socialists, that struggle is purely bad 
in the ethical region ? Verbally, he denies this. It 
is "struggle for the life of others," not absence of 
struggle, which is more and more to prevail till it 
dominates humanity. Partly this struggle may be 
explained as carried on against the forces of nature. 
Must it not also in part be a struggle between group 
and group, home and home ? The struggle will no 
doubt be carried on according to the laws of the 
game, those laws which we know as justice. It will 
be lighted up and made dignified by sympathy, by 
love for those within the group, by consideration 
even for rivals without. That is a very worthy pro- 
gramme. But does it not involve dropping the old 
hard false opposition between egoism and altruism, 
and dropping the somewhat apocryphal biological 
deduction of these two opposite tendencies ? If 
struggle is good, is there not an eternal use and fit- 
ness in a limited amount of egoism ? Or rather must 
not that which is called egoism, and marked under 
that name with obloquy, enter, however transformed, 



chap, xv REACTION FROM DARWINISM: DRUMMOND 1 67 

into the final moral constitution, and the highest 
human type? 

Again we ask, can the male element be purely- 
bad ? And when we come on to the " evolution of a 
father," we find qualifications introduced. Rather to 
his own surprise, Drummond has to admit that the 
alleged feminine soul of goodness is not the only 
moral type. Authority has a place as well as tender- 
ness ; justice, or righteousness, Huxley's favourite 
virtue, is a specially masculine addition to the sym- 
pathetic virtues. Good again ; but again tending to 
discredit Drummond's Comtist phraseology and his 
<7//tf.rz'-biological deduction of righteousness and of 
sin. 

Another objection has been brought forward by 
Mr. B. Kidd. Drummond is said to confuse sociality 
and family affection, whereas they are distinct things. 
This seems of small importance. Probably the two 
things ought to be distinguished. Yet they co-operate ; 
and, as Drummond has observed, the family is 
the strongest socialising influence. 

We touch on a rather more serious point when we 
inquire whether "struggle for the life of others" is 
or is not a factor in physical progress. Once, but 
(I think) only once, Drummond deals with this ques- 
tion, and gives an affirmative answer, in so far as this, 
that the best mothers will rear the strongest and 
most successful offspring. Usually, however, morality 
or " altruism " is spoken of not as a cause or factor in 
evolution, but as a feature or result of the evolution- 
ary process. The retort is almost inevitable from the 
side of pure or ultra-Darwinism, that natural selection 
by struggle is the whole fact, struggle for the life 



1 68 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD *art nl 

of others only a part of that fact, signifying struggle 
of group against group, yet assuredly signifying, still 
and always, struggle. If it be true that ultimately the 
whole race is " a moral organism," that "we are mem- 
bers one of another," that the highest and most 
advanced need the welfare of the most backward, 
that fact is a spiritual truth. We must not look to find 
it in nature ; we must not localise it in part of nature, 
and call this the moral part in contrast to the remainder, 
which is immoral or wicked. Nature is the presup- 
position of reason and morality, but reason and moral- 
ity work up the whole of nature's raw material, not 
the half merely. 

As against Huxley, Drummond seems to have been 
right. As against Darwin, he did not formulate any 
scientific difference. The same facts are in the view 
of both — the same facts differently stated and 
emphasised. To make a decisive advance, Drum- 
mond needed a more adequate philosophical school- 
ing. He intended to vindicate all nature for God. 
Constantly he seems to be vindicating only a section, 
though perhaps a growing section. That position is 
of no possible interest to Christian theism. 



CHAPTER XVI 

REITERATION OF DARWINISM I ELIMINATION MADE AB- 
SOLUTE MR. A. SUTHERLAND 

A strong book with some weaknesses — Works out the origin of moral 
feeling by natural selection — Restates Drummond-like position as 
Darwinian (?) — And exemplifies " arrival " of forms — Biology; 
fitness to survive — And to breed and rear — Quantity first relied 
on — Then quality — This develops sympathy — Which becomes 
serviceable — Anthropology ; everything depends on the ap- 
proaches to monogamy — Sociology ; progress is by elimination of 
the inferior — Even when it seems to find more rapid means — 
(Yet he allows some progress by imitation !) — History ; retrogres- 
sion is possible ! — For he hates all militarism — On the whole he 
does not believe in history — Or in reason — Ethics ; Has dealt 
only with one-half of goodness ! — Egoism must balance sympathy ! 

— Balance will grow automatic ! — Criticism ; no right to call 
sympathy moral, if only half of morality — Nature does not select 
one quality at a time ! — Selection said to have worked — Not true 
natural selection though — Why is goodness not automatic already ? 

— Do beauty and goodness exist, or do they not ? — " Yes and 
no!" 

Mr. Sutherland's two handsome volumes are 
among the most recent, and certainly not the least 
important, contributions to the biological study of 
morals. They are interesting in many ways. As a 
gift from Australia to older lands they deserve a 
courteous welcome. As the outcome — so we learn 
from the preface — of eleven years of labour they 
deserve our respect and almost our reverence. They 
cover a very wide field, including biology, anthro- 

169 



170 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

pology, history, philosophy. In the first Mr. Suther- 
land gives many results of his own observation, and 
so far as a non-expert can judge, he seems admir- 
ably equipped both as observer and as summariser 
for speaking on questions of biology. The same 
might be said regarding anthropology. In history 
Mr. Sutherland does not profess to be an original 
scholar, but he quotes to good purpose, and general- 
ises strikingly. Yet why does a student of Robert- 
son Smith express himself as if he had never heard 
of Old Testament criticism ? Why should he speak 
as if the character or conduct of King Solomon 
threw any possible light upon the Book of Prov- 
erbs ? No doubt the Old Testament references are 
of trifling amount ; but when an author is dependent 
(necessarily) on a great amount of borrowed ma- 
terial, one cannot but judge of his quotations from 
regions beyond one's knowledge by what one sees 
of his procedure in regions where one is able, so far, 
to control his method and test his judgment. In 
philosophy, finally, Mr. Sutherland is well read, but 
is hardly master of his materials. A writer who 
supposes that Kant's " moral law " meant the statute 
law or criminal code, puts himself out of court. 
And, for our part, we must dissent in the gravest 
possible way from his philosophical principles. 

Mr. Sutherland is chiefly interesting to us from 
the unflinching way in which he carries out the 
appeal to natural selection, or, as he very tellingly 
words it, to the working of "elimination," 1 in one 

1 Yet it is questionable whether Mr. Sutherland's elimination is the 
same process throughout as Darwin's, i.e. whether his natural selec- 
tion in morals, etc., is true natural selection. 



CHAr. xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM I^I 

region after another. He conducts a valuable ex- 
periment in seeking to use this one conception as 
a key to all the mysteries of progress. Mr. Suther- 
land modestly tells us that he has done little more 
than expand Darwin's chapter in the Descent of 
Man. Yet Darwin was concerned with morals only 
in an incidental fashion. Morality furnished a pos- 
sible objection to the opinion that man is descended 
from brute races. Darwin rebutted the objection 
by showing the affinities between human morality 
and animal sociality. He did not trace out in de- 
tail the derivation of the one from the other by the 
working of natural selection ; and this Mr. Suther- 
land does, or seeks to do. The appeal is steadily 
made to natural selection, and natural selection 
alone. Use-inheritance is "a matter under discus- 
sion, and on the whole improbable." 1 Reason is 
in no sense conceived as modifying the workings 
of selection which we see in nature. 

A second feature of special interest in Mr. Suther- 
land's book is his ingenious restatement of views very 
like Henry Drummond's in the Ascent of Man, and 
his restatement of them as the legitimate outcome of 
the Darwinian tradition. 2 To at least one reader Mr. 
Sutherland's account of the animal anticipations of 
morality has made the point of view intelligible and 
impressive as it never was before. One cannot doubt 
that there is a rehearsal of the whole drama of morals 
in races lower than man. And one learns from Mr. 
Sutherland how sympathy, which he treats as the 

1 ii. p. 89. 

2 Yet this is rather a transformed Darwinism. It gives a more 
moral view of the animal world (not of the human !). 



172 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

primary form of morality, was actually a factor in 
securing further progress. 

Yet a third reason for valuing Mr. Sutherland's 
book lies in the instances it points out of progress 
coming to its limit in certain directions, and so 
terminating. 

We must now try to describe briefly the leading 
thoughts of this full and interesting discussion with 
its admirable wealth of examples. We begin with 
biology. 

The first of all necessities is that emphasised by 
Darwin's doctrine, that the individual organisms 
should be fit or fittest to survive in the endless strug- 
gle of life. This postulate, however, does not carry 
us very far. The individual may survive, but the 
race will not survive or preponderate unless the vic- 
torious adult organism is able to bequeath its position 
to offspring, and thus to reproduce its great qualities 
— -.the congenital, if not the acquired qualities — 
in a subsequent generation. Of course the con- 
verse is equally true. There can be no transmission 
of qualities unless there is first, and for a time, per- 
sonal survival ! Therefore, Darwin's postulate may 
occupy the first place in our list of requisites. But 
the course of discussion has made the position clearer. 
It is not individual organism that competes against 
individual, but stock against stock. The prize of 
survival goes not simply to individual strength, but to 
individual strength plus an abundant healthy offspring. 

Now there are two ways in which nature has 
secured, and does secure, the maintenance of species. 
One is the method of quantity, the other of quality. 



chap, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 1 73 

In the lower forms of life, and in some which are 
pretty high, fecundity is almost inconceivably great. 
But the superior method is that of quality. Fewer of 
the offspring perish at an immature stage, for they 
are better guarded and better developed either before 
birth or while still under parental care. The methods 
are alternatives. As quality rises, quantity recedes. 
As care for offspring increases, the number of off- 
spring steadily diminishes ; l but every species pretty 
well holds its own on a net balance. One important 
side development of the method of quality is the 
method of the egg, the nest, and the incubating 
parent; but the crowning method is that of infant 
helplessness and maternal or parental self-sacrifice, 
best exemplified in human kind. 

We see therefore that the higher races are evolved 
on a principle of family life and family affection. 
But in this close intercourse of the home or the nest 
sympathy is born, and sympathy naturally extends 
itself to other members of the species. Here then 
we are on the very brink of morality itself. Indeed, 
we might say that the secret of the evolution of 
morals is placed by Mr. Sutherland just here. Na- 
ture, in the case of the higher tribes, required for 
survival that there should be a strong " perihestic " 
sympathy, and this sympathy could not be hindered 
from overflowing into " aphestic " 2 relations. Moral- 

1 Does this not point to a variation which is not random ? Are we 
really to suppose that, in the beginning, animal races produced families 
of all sizes, indiscriminately, and tended them with all possible degrees 
of care, until those with unsuitable proportions died off ? 

2 Mr. Sutherland's terms, coined by him for human morals, where 
no doubt they are more fully legitimate. 



174 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

ity was, so far, a kind of by-product in evolution, 
though an inevitable by-product. Family sympathy 
was a necessary cause of predominance in those 
races which had substituted quality for quantity, care 
or development of offspring for mere fecundity ; but 
in the first instance germinal morality, or the wider 
sympathy, was a symptom rather than a condition of 
progress. 

Only, however, in the first instance ; for as animal 
life drew nearer and nearer the confines of morality, 
and even before it had grown rational, gregariousness 
or sociality became serviceable. 1 The more grega- 
rious were selected, the less social were eliminated. 

Here then we have Drummondism brought into 
relation with natural selection, and exhibited as a 
subsection in the Darwinian theory. 

In anthropology Mr. Sutherland is inclined through- 
out to emphasise the importance of monogamy, and 
of the poorest, most imperfect approaches to it — 
never conceding much sway to polygamy, and not 
attaching importance to those strange phases of 
social development studied, e.g., in connection with 
totemism. In other words, Mr. Sutherland — like 
Mr. Herbert Spencer, though in different form — 
holds that there were no very complex processes 
involved in making man so social as he is. It is 
natural that such views should be advanced by one 
who puts the centre of moral development in the 
family, and who believes that all development — 
moral development, infra-moral development, de- 

1 Or so it is argued. The shoal darted away when one fish saw 
danger ; yes, but did not the shoal become a mark for dangers which 
solitary individuals might have escaped ? 



chap, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 1 75 

velopment of morals out of the non-moral — is due 
to natural selection. Mr. Sutherland's views are 
supported by much evidence as to the character of 
contemporary savage life. But, if other reports can 
be trusted, there are features both of the present 
and of the past which deserve more prominence than 
they receive with Mr. Sutherland. 

In general sociological theory Mr. Sutherland is 
strikingly loyal to his doctrine of elimination. Hu- 
man or moral progress is due to elimination, not by 
means of wholesale massacre, but through the grad- 
ual and unnoticed working of natural law. Criminals 
as a class leave but few children ; necessarily there- 
fore, in a generation or two, criminal stocks die out 1 
— or, shall we say, tend to die out? The vicious 
and grossly self-indulgent produce or rear few chil- 
dren ; they also die out. Even the coarse and vio- 
lent tend to kill each other off. "They that take 
the sword perish with the sword." The meek in- 
herit the earth by the simple process of "lyin' low 
and say in' nufrm'," like Brer Fox, or like the Babes 
in the Wood, while the ruffians dispose of one an- 
other. All this is vastly well so far as it is true ; but 
the violent, at any rate, have no special taste for 
singling out their violent rivals ; they are quite as 
ready to murder, outrage, or plunder the most sym- 
pathetic and inoffensive of their neighbours. 

Let us observe however the full force of the posi- 
tion. This method of elimination is regarded as the 

1 What about the Jukes family ? And again, if a criminal popula- 
tion is generated afresh by society at each stage, have we advanced by 
the elimination of previous criminals ? 



176 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

method of moral progress. It is so certain and so 
telling that all others may safely be neglected. 
When Christianity was accepted by the Teutonic 
barbarians it did not in the least pull them up to its 
higher moral level. Slowly, in the course of some 
thousand years or so, the incapable were weeded out 
and the general level was raised. Those sinners wan- 
dered in the wilderness for very nearly forty genera- 
tions till the whole stock died out in detail. This is 
a doctrine of the most unbounded materialism. It 
regards man as fatally determined by his antecedents. 
Free will is a dream, conversion or real repentance 
an impossibility. Yes, and that is all implied in the 
attempt to run natural selection right through — to 
make elimination the only method of moral progress. 
At one point Mr. Sutherland seems inconsistent 
with himself. In one passage he almost bursts the 
shackles of naturalism. He speaks of imitation as a 
cause of progress — like Bagehot, or like Professor 
Baldwin. But, so far as imitation acts, elimination 
is unnecessary. If example can be copied, there is 
a short cut to progress on the part of the inferior but 
teachable multitude. In nature imitation plays a 
very limited part. One species cannot borrow the 
good habits of another. If it could, you would have 
transformations ready made without the cumbrous 
machinery of elimination. And if imitation does 
work in human history, then, so far as it works, it 
supersedes natural selection. 

We may make a separate heading for Mr. Suther- 
land's conception of history in detail. The method 
of elimination being always steadily and triumphantly 



chap, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 1 77 

at work, we seem to have before us a programme of 
the boldest evolutionary optimism. All must be for 
the best in this best of all possible universes. Prog- 
ress, it would seem, cannot fail or be checked. That, 
we v think, ought to have been Mr. Sutherland's doc- 
trine, given his premises. Yet it turns out that he 
believes the clock went back precisely one thousand 
years when the barbarians overran the Roman em- 
pire. It took the barbarians precisely that time — 
Christianity and all — to reach the social and moral 
level of ancient Rome (! !) — and then progress re- 
commenced. Now, what does this singular view 
mean ? Perhaps for one thing it means that Mr. 
Sutherland — like Mr. Spencer, yet not altogether 
like him ; unlike Bagehot — has no sense of the 
moral worth of war, under whatever circumstances 
waged. It means that the masculine ideal, in spite 
of some isolated references to it, is left out of the 
reckoning, while the feminine ideal of sympathy is 
given a place of absolute predominance and authority. 
In a world wholly governed by natural selection, soft- 
ness surely ought to be ranked as a deadly sin. The 
Roman empire had grown too soft to fight. It was 
not therefore advanced, but retrograde, and unfit to 
survive. The barbarians may have been one thou- 
sand years behind, tried by certain tests ; but, in the 
light of the most practical of all tests, they were not 
behind, but before. Of course Mr. Sutherland's 
ultimate definition of "morality," as we shall find, 
makes it only one constituent of human well-being. 
Surely a very unfortunate abuse of terminology in a 
moral treatise ! 

Another qualification of Mr. Sutherland's views — 

N 



178 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

by common sense — slips out when he speaks of 
Howard the philanthropist 1 as moving his age. 
Now, this is curious. Christianity had no chance 
with the Teutonic peoples till natural selection killed 
off the heathen and barbarous majority; John How- 
ard, without waiting for natural selection to make 
"Howards of us all," was able to "move the hearts" 
of his fellow-countrymen. And yet Howard, with all 
his qualities, was surely not comparable to the founder 
of the Christian faith ? The one had his milieu ready 
made; the other had to create his milieu; but was 
His greatness not tolerant of that extra burden ? Or 
put it at the lowest : if personal influence is capable 
of doing anything, is there not a factor in moral 
progress to be reckoned with, independently of natu- 
ral selection ? 

On the whole, however, we might almost say that 
Mr. Sutherland does not believe in any such thing as 
history, or the throbbing and thrilling of the social 
organism to one great life. In history the public 
mind " moveth altogether if it move at all " ; what- 
ever lies below consciousness, there is a conscious 
life, and the conscious service of common ideals. 
But Mr. Sutherland will have it that nothing ever 
happens, except the interminable weeding of the hu- 
man garden. The bad die out ; the good have only 
to stand still, and they, or their stock, will be carried 
on by forces outside of them to a far distant triumph. 
We are in no sense members one of another. We 
are not so much men as things — things exactly like 
other things — or exceptional only in this, that we can 
find out in what direction we are tending, while we 

1 i. p. 420. 



chap, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 1 79 

are utterly incapable of modifying that direction or 
of altering the pace. 

Along with Mr. Sutherland's doctrine of history 
we may take his doctrine of reason, which resembles 
the other doctrine closely. There is no such thing 
as reason. Applying natural selection to every pro- 
cess, from the life of the amoeba to that of the saint, 
Mr. Sutherland scarcely has room for reason in his 
system. And therefore he shows us nature selecting 
the fittest emotions in the form of so many physio- 
logical processes — consciousness being a mere blind 
alley ; it came no one can say how or why ; it leads 
nowhere. The appropriate emotions are organic to 
our race, in total independence of the accident of rea- 
son or consciousness. They might last if it lapsed ; 
they are untouched and unaffected by it. It is a 
practical nullity, and ought not to have troubled our 
theories by existing at all. 1 

Passing on to morals, we meet with the great sur- 
prise of the book. By " moral instinct " Mr. Suther- 
land means sympathy. There is, he says, no instinct 
which tells us what is right and what is wrong ; moral 
opinion could not vary as it does if instinct were con- 

1 Mr. Sutherland ascribes emotions to a bodily source, and remarks 
that Professor William James has reached similar views. One observes, 
however, that Professor Lloyd Morgan speaks of the " almost paradoxi- 
cal emphasis of Mr. James's views," and of " making them somewhat 
less repugnant to common sense " by confining them to the first rise of 
emotion, in contrast to subsequent emotions qualified by " association." 
— Habit and Instinct, p. 190. Dr. S. H. Mellone {Studies in Philo- 
sophical Criticism and Construction, p. 249) states that Professor 
Dewey has maintained the paradox with more determination than 
Professor James. 



180 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part m 

trolling it. There is, however, a sympathetic instinct 
— the creation of natural selection. And that in- 
stinct tells us one of the conditions of right conduct ; 
another of the conditions, however, is dictated by the 
egoistic instinct. Right action is a resultant of these 
forces, or a compromise between them. Here, then, 
our great Darwinian in morals suddenly becomes a 
Spencerian in morals. And he goes all the way with 
Mr. Spencer. He looks forward to an age of per- 
fected balance, when good conduct will be automatic ; 
when there will presumably be a moral instinct ! 
Natural selection, steadily killing off the inferior 
types, will at last produce that " crowning race." 

Now, is this fair ? Truly, it is easy to show that 
morality is an outgrowth of sympathy if you define 
what is " moral " as equivalent to what is sympa- 
thetic ! All the time we are reading Mr. Suther- 
land's record of moral evolution we suppose that we 
are being shown the gradual origin of real central 
goodness, — of that spirit which embodies itself in 
right conduct, and does so willingly. Suddenly we 
learn that our impression was wrong ; that was not 
what was being shown ; we were looking on at the 
production of one constituent of goodness, but the 
other constituent, which is no less important, is quite 
a different thing ! Then were the morally advanced 
Romans, who succumbed before the barbarian in- 
roads, not really better men, but just more sympa- 
thetic ? The whole book had need to be rewritten. 
Mr. Sutherland must not talk of morality if he has in 
view only one-half of its conditions. Language has 
its rights, and the truths embodied in language must 
not be flouted, or they will take their revenge. 



chap, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM l8l 

Moreover, it seems very doubtful whether Mr. 
Sutherland is entitled to assume that natural selec- 
tion has developed sympathy, but has developed it 
in uncertain measure, so that it may be perhaps too 
much in amount, perhaps too little. Natural selec- 
tion has taught the lower and the higher animals 
exactly how many offspring to produce. Why has it 
not taught me exactly how much sympathy I am to 
feel ? Why has it developed a force uncertain in 
amount and working ? Unless because, after all, 
spirit is different from nature; because it is incon- 
ceivable that natural selection, and natural selection 
alone, has "out of darkness" stretched forth "the 
hands that reach through nature, moulding men." 

Again, let us note that two qualities have been 
selected — two seemingly if not really opposite quali- 
ties — egoism and altruism. 1 How may this be? 
Nature has really been selecting men, not qualities, 
men (or societies of men) who are the sum of all 
their qualities. Nature is regarded as a hanging 
judge. Every crime in her calendar is a capital 
offence. If nature is not satisfied with you, "off 
with his head," she cries; and forthwith you are 
thrust out. Nature has not been selecting one quality 
at a time ; she has been selecting aggregate fitness. 
It is lawful to study the process one quality at a time, 
if you like. But you must keep in mind that that is 
your own " abstraction." The only question with 
nature has been, first and last, who is in the aggre- 
gate fittest to survive ? Fitness has been selected, 
not quality A tending to fitness, nor quality B tend- 
ing to fitness, but A-f-B-f- . . . M. And again, from 

1 Mr. Sutherland thinks the latter word stilted, and avoids it. 



1 82 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

this rather different point of view, we are struck with 
the anomalousness of the fact that natural selection, 
if it has really been at work, has not already produced 
an automatic balance between egoism and altruism, 
or has not done so in the past if it is going to do so 
in the future. 

There might indeed be an explanation, if sym- 
pathy in its wider range outside the family were only 
(what Mr. Sutherland holds it was primarily) a by- 
product in evolution. In that case sympathy ought 
to be a casual and fluctuating factor in human nature. 1 
But Mr. Sutherland carefully rules out that view. 
Sympathy has been in the main a condition of suc- 
cess, and has been selected as such through untold 
ages. Is not Darwinism, at least apart from statis- 
tical tables, 2 a dangerously plastic method ? Any- 
thing and everything may be conceived as a quality 
tending in some way and to an itndefined degree 
towards predominance. Anything and everything 
may be ticketed, " First prize, for fitness to survive." 
The formula of Darwinism 

Is twice too big, 
And therefore needs must fit. 

Indeed, one observes that, in spite of his Darwinian 
phraseology, Mr. Sutherland is not thinking of natural 
selection per se as an evolutionary force, but of natural 

1 Compare Mr. A. J. Balfour's remarks upon the aesthetic sense 
(Foundations of Belief, Book IV.), based on the assumption of evolu- 
tion by natural selection. 

2 Demanded by Mr. Karl Pearson in The Chances of Death, etc. — 
Dr. Pearson, one notes, is a Professor of Applied Mathematics. — His 
suggestion deserves consideration. 



chap, xvi REITERATION OF DARWINISM 1 83 

selection modified by the presence of animal sympathy. 
This seems a true account of the facts of nature, but 
it is a miserably inadequate account of the facts of 
human society ; and unfortunately Mr. Sutherland ad- 
mits no morality among men beyond the rudimentary 
morality which he finds in the brute world. Elimination 
must do everything for us ; it cannot ! And whatever 
elimination does for human advance it is precisely that 
elimination which is least like the Darwinian that sur- 
vives the advent of reason. If the child of vicious or 
criminal or heartless parents is neglected and dies, 
while the child of honest, pure, and affectionate 
parents survives, there is no struggle. The better 
care paid to the second child is not the cause why the 
first succumbs. If the ill-cared-for child were the 
only child in the world, it must still die of neglect. 
" Elimination " here is not a case of selection after 
struggle ; it is nature's own protest against vice and 
exuberant selfishness. 

But let us pursue the subject further. Does Mr. 
Sutherland habitually place himself outside of morality, 
and view it with scientific coolness, as one quality 
tending towards success ? Or does he write from the 
inside, with a glow of admiration for " the true, the 
just"? Very often he does the latter. It would be 
altogether to misrepresent Mr. Sutherland if we did 
not confess that he writes like a good man and a lover 
of goodness. But in his final attitude he seeks to com- 
bine both views. Goodness is authoritative for us ; 
we are bound to be loyal to it ; we must speak and 
think and feel as if goodness were something objective 
and absolute, cosmical, divine ; and yet reason forces 
us to be agnostics. Goodness is nothing but one of 



1 84 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

the conditions of race efficiency and race survival. 
Beauty is nothing in itself ; and the sense of beauty 
is mere habituation to environment, whether from in- 
herited experience (Lamarck, Spencer, also Darwin) 
or from the slower but not less sure (Darwinian) pro- 
cess of elimination. We must steadily occupy a posi- 
tion on both sides of the hedge. Mr. Sutherland is 
determined to warm his hands, as long as he lives, at 
a painted fire. He knows it is painted ; you shall not 
throw dust in his eyes ! He is determined to keep on 
warming himself ; how dare you forbid him ? 

We at least have no wish to do so. We would 
rather hope that some day he may discover the 
glorious truth, that what warms him is not paint, but 
God's own sunshine. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 

I. Chance in relation to purpose, as accident — As absence of design 
— In relation to law ; as blind law — As blind combination of 
laws — Compare with the last the scientific or mechanical view 
of the world ; a number of separate substances ruled by a number 
of independent laws — Good enough for science, not for philos- 
ophy — Darwin ought not to assume things as really discon- 
nected, merely because he has not needed to investigate their 
connection — As if organism and environment were accidentally 
brought together — Or as if organism and organism were mere 
rivals — (They are rivals !) — Or as if force and force were dis- 
connected? 

II. Darwin treats variation as casual, i.e. as a thing with no bearing 
in itself on the purpose of the species — His theory allows this 
assumption — But does not prove it — We all habitually under- 
stand the theory in that sense, e.g. in contrasting natural selec- 
tion with use-inheritance — On the fact, evidence is wanted — 
Conceivably variation may choose very irregularly between many 
fixed possibilities — This seems to point back to disconnected 
laws, as in last section 
III. Even on Darwin's own view he is hardly entitled to call the process 
of evolution natural selection — Aggregate range of possible 
variation is fixed by the nature of the material — Two agencies 
must be taken together — Of the two the varying organism, not 
the blindly selecting environment, seems the better to account 
for rise of new qualities — Summary of I., II., III. 

IV. Kinds of natural selection, A, B, and C — B exists ! — If organic 
evolution is a fact, C exists ! — Accelerating any other evolution- 
ary force that may exist, and of course involving B — If A is 
found alongside of C, A must have a separate field where C can- 
not enter, else inconsiderable — Natural selection (C) lasts as 
long as nature is nature — Even along with (the more rapid 

185 



1 86 FROM. COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

force of) animal intelligence — True reason checks it — Does 
natural selection ever work by itself (A) ? — Higher animals 
with fewer births evolve as quickly as lower ; has a new force 
arisen ? or was natural selection never the leading force ? — 
[Can we regard intelligence as the new evolving force ? Dr. 
Mellone assumes its operation everywhere !] 
V. Can natural selection apply to men ? — Biologically — Struggle 
with beasts is over — Famine (A) is rare, and of doubtful ten- 
dency — Pestilence (C) does harm — Vice (B) — Crime (B) — 
War (selects the wrong way) — Religious celibacy (7£.) — Sum- 
mary — Sociologically — Mr. Kidd's insistence on struggle is 
really biological ; is unproved; is not an insistence on natural 
selection — Ethically — Mr. Alexander's competition of" Ideals " 
is exaggerated — And itself implies reason and sympathy — Mr. 
Sutherland's elimination of evil doers ignores positive causes of 
moral progress — Exemplified typically in Jesus Christ 

VI. If natural selection does not operate where reason and conscience 

exist, it yet may originate them in the loose and incorrect sense 
in which natural selection is said to originate things ! — If reason, 
etc., were, as most suppose, evolved and selected — How 
selected? — Have adjacent races died out? 

VII. Other idealist views — Professor Ritchie praises natural selection 

more fully, in vague terms and in some passages — Mr. Sande- 
man rejects it, because he believes in the teleological perfection 
of every organism — But is it possible to get over the impression 
produced by rudimentary organs? — It is enough if the whole of 
nature is good, and its parts relatively fit — Dr. Stirling believes 
the casual variation which makes an individual can never make a 
type — Is it certain that every individual is born differentiated? 
— Or that any differences are incapable of growing by cumula- 
tion into a type ? — Possible value of the hypothesis of natural 
selection, even if a fiction 

It was no part of the plan of this book to undertake 
a direct criticism of theories of evolution upon their 
merits, whether from the point of view of biology or 
of philosophy, of science or of metaphysics. If we 
now find it necessary to undertake an estimate of the 
value of Darwinism, we do so not merely because of 
the outstanding importance of that theory, but because 



chap, xvn METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 1 87 

in summing up results, we are led to insist on a dis- 
tinction. While we admit, and even (so far as we 
have any right to speak) defend, the theory of natural 
selection in biology, we affirm that it cannot be ap- 
plied in sociology or morals. Such a view seems to 
need justification. It can only be supported by a 
review, however hurried and imperfect, of the merits 
of Darwinism. 

The question may perhaps best be approached by a 
discussion of the element of chance contained, or said 
to be contained, in the Darwinian theory. Perhaps 
some minds love Darwinism, because it appeals to 
chance ; others undoubtedly distrust and despise it 
for that reason. What is chance ? Does Darwinism 
assert chance, and, if so, in what sense ? How far is 
it warranted in doing so ? 



First and most simply, chance is the opposite of 
purpose. It implies a failure of purpose where the 
presence of purpose and its successful realisation were 
expected. A train is meant to carry me safely to my 
journey's end — that is purpose. Instead of doing so 
it runs off the rails ; the natural forces set to work 
were imperfectly known or imperfectly controlled. 
That is accident, not purpose. Neither the passen- 
gers nor the company's servants designed that result. 
When a young rough puts a stone upon the track, and 
wrecks a train, that is not " accident," though by a 
natural extension of the term we may call it so. That 
is not chance, but wicked purpose. It is crime. 

Darwinism does not exactly assert chance in this 
sense, although it may seem to do so. Apparently 



1 88 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

Darwin himself believed that he had destroyed the 
evidence in support of purpose or design in nature. 
J. S. Mill, too, looking at the new doctrine, thought 
that, if it were established, it would substitute chance 
for design. The evidence for the latter would go 
to pieces on the " plurality of causes." But even if 
Darwinism should be held to destroy teleology, such 
a view involves using the word " chance " in a sense 
markedly different from that in which we have defined 
it above. Chance or "accident" in human life means 
partial failure of purpose through man's weakness 
or ignorance — partial failure standing out in sharp 
relief against a background of habitual success. He 
aimed, as he always does, but he missed the mark 
this time. That is what we mean (so far) when we 
say "the disaster was due to chance;" "he had a 
dreadful accident yesterday. " There is no full parallel 
between this and Darwin's wholesale denial of teleol- 
ogy in nature. There was no one to take aim, hints 
Darwin. 

Moreover, it is not enough to deny teleology. It is 
necessary, if you are to carry weight, that you give a 
plausible explanation of the fact that nature mimics 
purpose. Darwin has given such an explanation. 
What part does chance play in it? 

If we cannot fully interpret chance by a reference 
to telic purpose, we must bring it into relation with 
efficient causation — or causal law, as we ordinarily 
phrase it ; efficient cause, or that scientific conception 
of cause which stands nearer to efficiency than to 
any other of Aristotle's " causes," having well-nigh 
monopolised the name of cause in the minds of 
modern men. 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 189 

The assertion of chance will now imply either (1) 
mere blind causal law, in opposition to purpose, or 
else (2) mere blind coincidence of several uncon- 
nected laws or forces. 

The phrase is often used in the first sense in de- 
nunciation of Materialism. Did mere blind causal 
law, it is asked, — did the mere law of matter blunder 
into mind ? This, however, could not be Darwin's 
sense. He denied purpose; but it was not at all his 
affair to disparage causal law. Besides, it is not the 
case that any one cause (not being a mental " First 
Cause ") can be said to account for living species. 
" Natural selection," the supposed creator of distinct 
" species," is a group of many different causal factors, 
curiously entangled with each other. 

We are driven then upon the last sense. A chance 
is a coincidence. Series A and Series B cross each 
other at one point, and affect each other unexpectedly 

— it may be grievously. They are distinct things; 
but they "happen" to have their existence side by 
side in the same universe ; presently they " happen " 
to exchange their formation side by side for a hostile 
formation, front against front, and there is a collision, 

— it was an accident ! The wind that blew over the 
rotten tree, the cry that caused the child to run 
forward, had no connection with each other. But the 
child " happened " to be just under the tree as it fell, 
and was crushed — by accident. 

The champion of ethics must not look askance upon 
the doctrine of chance in this sense. Chance and 
choice are very closely connected. Man can neither 
create nor annul force. He can govern it only by 
determining where one current shall cross another. 



190 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

No contingency in nature, would imply, No free will 
in man ! or at least, no power of affecting external 
nature by his will. 

Moreover, this form of the doctrine of chance, or 
something very like it, is involved in the logic of 
science. We call it mechanism. The " finite " sciences 
take a mechanical view of the universe. They reduce 
its processes to a few elementary substances (chemi- 
cal elements, e.g.), actuated by a few elementary 
forces. Sometimes, as in Mr. Herbert Spencer, we 
find more fundamental views of evolution proceeding 
spontaneously from a homogeneous material unity ; 
but such views are a dreamy speculation ; they have 
neither the demonstrativeness nor the definiteness 
which are the glory of science. 1 Science is content 
to pause — where perhaps it thinks that knowledge 
itself pauses — at the discovery of distinct separate 
substances and distinct separate forces. And so to 
it the universe is a machine — not an organism ; the 
co-operation of distinct parts explains the cosmos; 
its unity is not (as in an organism) prior to the dis- 
tinction of parts from each other. May we take it 
that, as long as we are thinking in terms of matter, 
this view is correct ? That such a mechanical view 
of the universe is the ideal goal of (finite) science ? 
Speculative thinkers will ask for more. The mind 



1 This characterisation may seem to ignore the law of the correlation 
of forces or transmutation of energy. But how far does that law carry 
us ? What does it affirm ? Different forces are different manifesta- 
tions of one force, taking their shape under different given conditions. 
I do not see that science can simplify beyond that statement. Accord- 
ingly, the given conditions represent the " ultimate " plurality, with 
which scientific analysis leaves us. 



chap, xvn METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 191 

itself may demand some deeper or fuller unity. Are 
not the different substances in some way calculated 
or adjusted or related to each other ? Is their co- 
existence purely casual ? Is the quantity of each (so 
far as we can speak of quantity in the whole universe 
— so far as we can treat the universe as finite) purely 
casual, or is it determined by some obscure law ? 
These questions lie beyond the range of the special 
sciences, which carry on their business quite success- 
fully apart from such researches, finishing their own 
work upon the crude assumptions of mechanism — 
a few substances ; arbitrarily given quantities of each ; 
a few elementary laws. Possibly, as we have said, 
you cannot reasonably go farther unless you quit the 
logic of science for philosophy — unless you exchange 
matter for some frankly idealist conception of reality. 

Within science, then, there seems to be a doctrine 
of co-existence closely analogous to what we mean in 
ordinary speech by chance. It differs in one respect; 
" chances " are occasional interferences, while science 
details the habitual co-operation of law with law. 
The difference supplies science with one excuse for 
declining to endorse an appeal to mere " chance " 
on the part of Darwinism. But the conceptions of 
scientific mechanism and of chance co-existence are 
identical at heart. Both take as given several inde- 
pendent substances and processes, without asserting 
or believing in any wider law connecting them with 
each other. 

There is indeed a different way of escape besides 
the metaphysical shifting of the point of view. We 
may address ourselves to old-fashioned teleology. 
Keeping the idea of hard, repellent, individual things, 



192 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part m 

we may suppose that a designing and combining 
force, external to themselves, crushes them together 
into a unity. But such a philosophy is liable to be 
charged with dualism. And not without reason ; it 
is quite as mechanical, in its own way, as the logic of 
science. Here once more two elements, which as the 
Germans say "belong together," are made to fall 
asunder. The material elements or forces, and the 
law of their combination, are assigned to different 
quarters. Nature has no tendency in itself towards 
life ; a Deistic God outside of nature forces His 
thought of life upon alien materials, as the human 
sculptor forces the design of his brain upon the mar- 
ble, which was fused in nature's laboratory without 
any reference to the needs of artist or artizan. Hence 
also it is clear why a system of idealism, which tries 
to show that all things are related together, and es- 
pecially that design and materials belong to each 
other, becomes suspected of pantheism. There is 
undoubtedly a pantheistic strain in it. Are we sure 
that there is not a pantheistic strain in the truth and 
nature of things ? 

It is not any form of teleology, but, on the con- 
trary, the purely and characteristically analytic pro- 
cedure of science, that we seem to find in Darwin. 
With him, natural selection is a biological hypothesis. 
He proposes to account for all the different living 
species from a few given elements — (i) organisms, 
multitudinous in number but simple in kind, distinct 
from each other, hostile, competing for the prize of 
survival; (2) an environment in which life is possible; 
(3) heredity ; (4) variability. The first three factors 
sum up in the result (a) struggle ; and all four f ac- 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 1 93 

tors taken together give us the final result (b) selec- 
tion. The immediate outcome of Darwin's theory as 
a contribution to science is this, he needs no additional 
factor. The factors already named suffice (he holds) 
to account for the further result — many distinct liv- 
ing species. As a scientific worker, Darwin simply 
postulates his small array of causes existing casually 
alongside of each other. The man of science has no 
need to search more deeply, and Darwin does not do so. 
But, when natural selection is generalised as a philo- 
sophical theory, when it is applied to other depart- 
ments of existence, outside of and above biology, we 
must raise deeper issues. We must not allow the as- 
sumption to pass as matter of course, that the " ab- 
stractions," which are legitimate and necessary in 
special sciences, are facts, or are determining condi- 
tions of all human thinking. Because you have skil- 
fully dissected the world into a few separate limbs or 
tissues, and can show exactly how they fit together, 
it does not follow that no subtle " spiritual bond " has 
eluded your scalpel. Because you can explain your 
special problem without asking whether organism and 
environment, organism and organism, force and force, 
have any necessary relation to each other beyond the 
bare fact of co-existence, it does not follow that you 
have demonstrated the unreality of such a relation- 
ship. You have assumed its non-existence — or 
rather you have ignored the whole question ; and 
quite fairly for a special purpose. But you have 
proved nothing. And the sceptical programme is 
improbable, perhaps impossible ; " mechanism made 
absolute ; chance the only nexus between the ele- 
ments of nature ! " 



194 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part m 

Such is the view of Darwinism which I suggest. 
Those who entirely reject natural selection, even as a 
biological hypothesis, may insist with a good deal of 
force that organic life — that curious half-way house 
between nature and spirit — or may insist that animal 
life, so far as psychical, already shares largely the 
nature of spirit ; that therefore we are guilty of folly 
in treating it on physical or mechanical lines. If in 
an organism the whole is prior to the parts, can we 
explain the genesis of organic species by the co-exist- 
ence and interaction of [things which we treat as] 
distinct parts ? The objection is forcible. Does it 
not amount to saying that a science of biology is 
impossible ? That philosophy must annex to its own 
department all treatment of the problems of life ? I 
think such a view extreme. 

Let us see how the doctrine of chance or of 
mechanism works out in sundry particulars of the 
Darwinian hypothesis. 

Organism a?id Environment. — Darwin assumes 
elementary living forms (else he has nothing to make 
species out of), and plenty of them (else there will be 
no struggle). He takes them for granted: they have 
a suitable environment; they live and are able (some 
of them) to survive. It is not his affair to ask 
whether organism and environment have any mystic 
connection. He takes them as given. They are 
facts — just facts. 

Yes ; but it is a very long step indeed from this 
point of view to the denial of teleology, to the assertion 
that organic fitness itself arose through natural selec- 
tion by the weeding out of unfit forms. The ignoring 
of the problem of necessary relation between organ- 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 1 95 

ism and environment is one thing, the denial of such 
relation is quite a different thing, and nothing in 
scientific Darwinism justifies it. Darwin the biologist 
has shown us how life may advance, build itself up, 
differentiate itself ; how fit may become fitter. He 
has not shown us how unfit may tumble into fitness. 
Among the postulates of his process of biological 
evolution are numerous fit living forms. 

Organism and Organism. — These, Darwin tells us, 
have nothing to do with each other except to struggle 
against each other. Not all creatures stand directly 
in relations of struggle. Probably a whale and a 
robin red breast have no influence on each other's 
estate. But, when organisms do affect one another, 
they do so on terms of hostility. Some species prey 
upon others. In adjacent species, and within the 
same species, there is (from our point of view, not 
from theirs ; they have not consciousness to intensify 
it), there is competition for nourishment. All of 
them cannot survive times of scarcity or danger. 
The weak have their chance but get weeded out. 

This statement ignores (1) animal sociability and 
mutual help, usually, not always, between creatures of 
the same species. Competition, it may be argued, is 
largely a human surmise or interpretation; sociality 
is a fact, psychical as well as physical, in animal life. 
(2) It ignores the dependence of animals upon living 
food of some kind. True, the relation of the eaten to 
the eater is not one of friendship. Yet it is a highly 
positive relation. It is not the whole truth about the 
cosmos of life that its many species and innumerable 
organisms are inconsistent with each other. The 
food species does not simply struggle against the pred- 



I96 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

atory species by flight, mimicry, protective organs, 
etc. ; it makes such species possible. 

Having made these deductions from its value, can 
we accept natural selection by struggle as a (or the) 
great method of evolution and lever of progress in 
nature ? There is no great presumption, surely, in 
putting the question ! The evidence in favour, not of 
organic evolution, but of natural selection as its 
method, is deductive and hypothetical ; the same 
thing indeed is true of many of our scientific theories. 
The evidence for natural selection is as follows: (1) 
Struggle and selection are facts; (2) They will — 
given time enough — account for quite as much 
progress, quite as much differentiation, as we see in 
the cosmos of life; (3) Therefore, by the law of 
parsimony, they have caused it. All this is only 
probable evidence, and " the plurality of causes " 
may undermine it. Accordingly we claim the right 
of criticising the theory, and asking whether it is 
antecedently credible. It is thinkable that the evo- 
lution of life proceeds along lines of struggle ? — 
Surely that is thinkable. The doctrine merely im- 
plies that living organisms are parts of nature and 
are treated as such ; that though the organic and the 
animal may approach the spiritual, they have not 
yet reached it. And, by naming one intelligible 
and thinkable process of evolution in organisms, 
Darwin has even helped the cause of sound philos- 
ophy and the cause of faith. When we meet with 
intelligible processes, we perceive the presence of 
reason in the world ; and when the Christian per- 
ceives reason at work, he is more than ever assured 
that the world he lives in is God's world. 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 197 

Force and Force. — Symmetry with what has gone 
before would lead us to head our next paragraph with 
these words. But it is questionable whether we can 
fairly charge Darwin with treating the different bio- 
logical forces involved in natural selection — life, 
variability, heredity — as mutually independent and 
merely coincident things. Scientific logic may in- 
cline students of science to do this, but a wholesome 
sense of biological realities will keep them in check. 
Where Darwin is open to question in this re- 
gion is in his doctrine of variability. Is variation 
related in any intelligible fashion to heredity ? Or is 
it purely " casual " ? Perhaps we shall find that Dar- 
win emphasises the mechanical blending of distinct 
heredities — that " heredity and heredity" are pitted 
against each other in his thinking, quite in the spirit 
of the logic of chance. 

The question is so important, and at the same time 
so complex and obscure, that we had better make a 
fresh heading for it. 

II 

We have to ask then whether there is a special 
appeal to chance by Darwin in his doctrine of 
variations ? 

Darwin largely treated these as casual, almost as 
if uncaused. But it was not, for the moment, his 
affair to say how variations arose ; he was to show 
how they worked out. He never thought of assert- 
ing deliberately that variations are uncaused; his 
followers explicitly deny and repudiate any such 
view. 



198 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

What Darwin has done is to assume that variations 
are casual in reference to the purpose of the species ; 
that the individual variations arising in nature, so 
long as they are unweeded by struggle, do not di- 
rectly tend to fitness. In this sense Darwin affirms, 
or rather implies, chance — chance in contrast with 
purpose, but yet with a distinct shade of meaning 
from either of the senses of chance as against pur- 
pose which we noted above. Not (1) partial failure 
of purpose is implied, as when men fall into acci- 
dents. Nor yet (2) entire absence of (proved) purpose, 
as when Darwinism is said to destroy the teleological 
argument for the being of God. But (3) partial ab- 
sence of purpose. While all the other processes of 
plant or animal life are purposeful, variation moves 
at random. 

Darwin we say assumed this. He did so when he 
called the entire process Natural Selection. If varia- 
tion itself were (to any extent) purposeful, progress 
would not depend entirely upon the selecting agency ; 
but Darwin's nomenclature implies that indirect selec- 
tion is the only cause of progress. He had invented 
a theory which would account for evolution even if 
variations were non-purposeful. It was natural to 
slip into a habit of speaking as if variations had been 
proved to be non-purposeful. But that had not been 
proved. Nothing had been proved about variations. 
And so long as we are without laws of variation, it is 
very hard to define the meaning and bearing of 
Darwinism. 

For example, the general bearing of use-inheritance 
is naturally defined thus : it will give the same results 
with natural selection, only more rapidly. But in 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 1 99 

speaking so one assumes, what is habitually assumed, 
and never proved, that variation is casual, i.e. non- 
advantageous (in itself and on the average). If it 
turned out that variation moved even in part along 
the lines of evolutionary change, then Darwinism or 
even Hyper-Darwinism might warrant the hope of 
rapid progress. Hence it is extraordinarily difficult 
to bring to the test of experiment the questions 
between the Lamarckians and the Weismann school. 
One glides into the habit of thinking that it is mainly 
a question of pace. And yet quick pace, if it were 
proved, might not be a presumption in favour of 
Lamarckian use-inheritance. It might only point to 
a neglected element in Darwinism, to the necessity of 
regarding variation per se as telic not casual. 

We do not mean here to affirm that variation must 
be advantageous, or even that it must proceed along 
definite lines. We merely claim that such possibili- 
ties should not be forgotten. The questions are 
questions of fact, and further evidence is required. 
Causeless variations are inconceivable things ; in that 
view, presumably, all will agree. But, just as little 
as the evolutionist would waste time over a hypothesis 
which involved surrendering the causal law, so little 
would others consent to trifle with a great question 
by framing the hypothesis of variations perversely 
opposed to the specific type. Still, within limits, we 
might conceive of " casual " variations, if variability 
worked along one of several fixed possible directions, 
while the reasons why it chose one track rather than 
another were highly obscure. 

Let us take an illustration. Every house of two or 
more storeys must include a staircase. The stair may 



200 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

be straight as a ladder, or it may be spiral, or it may 
be a series of straight flights with landings, or it 
may even be attached to the outside of the house 
like the "bonnie, bonnie outside stairs" at Thrums. 
The one thing illegitimate is to omit the stairs, as the 
amateur who draws his own plans is so apt to do. 
Well then, in variation, the spiral staircase may be 
beaten into flat sections, or the outside stair may be 
brought within doors, or vice versa. Variation may 
be " casual " in this sense, that it is liable to take any 
one of several directions. Pattern A or B replaces 
C, — you cannot say why. Variation will not be 
casual in the sense of omitting what is advantageous 
or necessary. It will not leave out the staircase. 
Experience shows that when animal " monstrosi- 
ties " occur, they are not strictly congenital. They 
are the result of accident after development had 
begun. 

As to the reason why variation goes thus or thus 
in so irregular a fashion ; in a different region one 
would be inclined to interpret irregularity as meaning 
the (casual or intermittent) blending of several (dis- 
tinct) laws, the imposing of several curves one upon 
another. And so we should be brought back to a 
" chance " [under obscure temporary conditions ?] 
blending of distinct influences [parental, ancestral ?]. 

Tentatively then we would decide that Darwin 
appeals to chance and that he is right in doing so. 
He appeals to chance by the assumption that vari- 
ation is or may be random in its direction, — harmful 
quite as often as helpful. And — still more tenta- 
tively — we propose to identify "chance" in this 
sense with " chance " in a sense already discussed — 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 201 

the mechanical addition to each other of separate 
forces interfering with one another's drift. In the 
present instance, the forces in question are of the 
nature of hereditary tendencies. But, while we sug- 
gest this view tentatively, as good science, we are 
sure that it cannot be the final truth on the point. 
The last word upon most topics must be spoken not 
by science but by philosophy. 

Ill 

The phrase Natiwal Selection. — Thirdly, we have 
still further to inquire whether, even on Darwin's own 
view of evolution, the name natural selection is quite 
a fair description of the evolutionary process. Dar- 
win the biologist may be right in his facts and causes, 
and yet Darwin the philosopher may be wrong in the 
emphasis he throws upon different features in his 
system, or in the wider suggestions that grow out of 
his statements of biological doctrine. Now, Darwin's 
language seems to attribute greater scope to chance 
than is allowed to it by the deliberate processes of 
his thinking. The name natural selection seems to 
imply that progress is due, though negatively and 
indirectly, to the environment alone. Organisms 
evolve, it would seem, because of a foreign influence, 
forcing advance on the reluctant materials. The 
whole cause of progress lies in the selecting envi- 
ronment, not in the varying organism ; and selection 
proceeds blindly by destruction of the unfit. Here 
again we have the spirit of the doctrine of chance. 
We see it partly in the assumption that organism and 
environment have nothing to do with each other, 



202 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part ill 

partly in the assertion that (if not the existence of 
life ; to take the same view on that point involves 
a further stretch of the spirit of materialism ; yet) 
all advances in life are due to conditions resident in 
the environment, operating outside and apart from 
the purposeful processes of the living creature. To 
say that " natural selection " causes this or that is 
almost equivalent to saying that " casual co-existence " 
creates this or that. One is tempted to take up the 
very opposite position, and assign whatever is new in 
evolution, even according to Darwin's own analysis, 
to the varying organism, and not to the selecting 
environment. " Natural selection " seems a fair 
enough name for the evolutionary process (as con- 
ceived by Darwin), so far as that to which it applies 
can be regarded as one thing evolving continuously 
throughout the process. Thus life may be said to 
differentiate itself into new and finer forms "by 
natural selection." But natural selection can do no 
more. It cannot " explain " how matter should pass 
into life, or how animality should evolve rationality. 
If for any purpose, or from any point of view, we 
have to emphasise novelty as novel, then it is un- 
reasonable to speak of the evolutionary process which 
led to it, even if Darwin's analysis of that process be 
accepted, by the name of " natural selection." There 
must have been possibilities in " protoplasm " answer- 
ing to all the novel results of late evolution. Let the 
variations come up as they may ; let them point in 
every direction by turns, quite at random, if you insist 
upon it ; still, apart from the amount or direction of 
each individual congenital variation, there must be a 
total possible range of variations, prescribed by the 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 203 

material, and at the very most merely elicited by natu- 
ral selection. Of the two then, life, not environment, 
the living creature itself, and not the non-living 
conditions round about it, explains the acquisi- 
tion of new qualities and the development of fresh 
specific types. Of the two, Darwin has emphasised 
the wrong one, and has isolated it by assuming its 
merely casual relation to the other. So we might 
speak, in one-sided opposition to Darwin's graver 
one-sidedness. But the truly reasonable view to 
hold is that both together — varying organism and 
selecting environment — and both as elements in 
one orderly process, lead to evolution. 

We do not blame Darwin for speaking in contrac- 
tions. By the necessity of the case human language 
is elliptical. The one exception proving the rule is 
furnished by the lawyers. They omit nothing ; they 
recite everything in detail over and over again ; and 
they are the awful example of verbosity, the drunken 
helots of human speech. But elliptical nomencla- 
ture, however necessary, is full of dangers. If I 
were driving pigs to market I might reasonably 
(though elliptically) say that they got there because I 
headed them off at all the wrong roads which we had 
to pass. Yet it would be perilous to affirm that 
" heading off " was the one cause why they got to 
market. They got there because they were quad- 
rupeds, and disliked being hit. (I waive, as possibly 
not directly relevant, the further consideration that 
there was some one to drive them.) Yet our modern 
evolutionists talk as if barricading the wrong roads 
not only kept pigs from straying, but actually taught 
them for the first time how to walk. 



204 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

When we turn to use-inheritance once more we 
see that it also may be so developed as to convey the 
same vicious suggestion. New qualities come from 
without, not from within ; from the environment, and 
not from the organism. The environment stamps 
them on the passive organism, and it (according to 
the doctrine of use-inheritance) transmits them to 
offspring. But Mr. Sandeman has forestalled this 
opinion by a remark of brilliant force and point. 
Every acquired quality, he observes, is congenital [in 
its rudiments], and every congenital quality is also 
acquired [i.e. developed in the course of life]. Of 
course this is a very strong form of statement, and 
it seems to forbid all use of the wonted distinction. 
But presently, having fired off his epigram, and hav- 
ing bowled over his enemy with it, Mr. Sandeman 
descends to a less rarefied atmosphere, and admits 
that the two possibilities may be contrasted as matters 
of fact and [conceivably, though experiment is diffi- 
cult here] of evidence. For the truth is that every 
living creature is more or less plastic in definite direc- 
tions ; and life develops this or that ; so it is a fair 
question whether or not the offspring resemble the 
parent as modified in his own development prior to 
his begetting offspring. But Mr. Sandeman's para- 
dox serves as a warning. We must not go to use- 
inheritance for the direct production of new qualities 
in the organism, miracle fashion, by an alien envi- 
ronment. In a sense, use-inheritance is a more teleo- 
logical theory than natural selection ; yet it may be 
subordinated to the most extremely mechanical phi- 
losophy, if in " use " environment is held to be active 
and the organism itself passive. 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 205 

Regarding Darwinism and chance .then we have 
decided as follows: — First, Darwinism asserts chance 
(co-existence) in the same way in which [finite] science 
ordinarily asserts it, by a mechanical view of the uni- 
verse ; secondly, Darwinism has also assumed the pos- 
sibility of random [non-purposeful] variations ; and 
on analysis this seems to point back once more to the 
same scientific assumption of distinct co-operating 
forces. So far then as Darwinism really or neces- 
sarily implies chance, it is not discredited as a 
science among sciences. All of them do something 
similar. There are, of course, further questions as to 
the ultimate validity of the scientific analysis, but 
these questions belong to the domain of philosophy. 
Thirdly, however, Darwin's phrase, ''natural selec- 
tion," lays greater stress upon the element of chance 
than his own facts warrant. He speaks as if the 
eliminating agency of a disconnected environment 
were the one thing valuable. In a sense he may be 
said to have made it probable that an element of 
chance (co-existence) enters into the evolutionary 
process. But that gives him no right to say that 
evolution is "due to" chance co-existence. A spark, 
along with fitting proportions of oxygen and hydro- 
gen, produces water ; but you would throw little 
light upon the nature of water by isolating one of the 
factors in its production, and by describing the liquid 
as "due to" a spark. Salt improves soup, but it 
would be a fool's enterprise to set about making 
soup from salt. 



206 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 



IV 

Before we go on to test the applicability of natural 
selection to human affairs we may do well to ask 
whether, in the interpretation of physical nature, 
" natural selection " is not invoked in different 
senses. We are haunted by ambiguity. " Darwin- 
ism " is an ambiguous expression. The central con- 
tribution of Darwin to evolutionary theory was the 
doctrine of natural selection ; yet that by itself is 
hyper-Darwinism ; in the master's hands Darwinism 
means natural selection plus use-inheritance plus sex- 
ual selection; these three, at any rate. So, when 
natural selection is used as a synonym for Darwinism, 
it must prove most ambiguous. May we take for 
granted that variation is non-telic and yet constitutes 
new species ? Let us call this natural selection A. 
Are we to regard natural selection merely as a force 
that prevents relapse by weeding out possible evil 
specimens ? Let us call this natural selection B. 
Or are we to regard it as a positive source of prog- 
ress when in alliance with other evolutionary forces 
(telic variation, use-inheritance, sexual selection, a 
more general working of intelligence ; all these are 
candidates for the position) — secondary to them, 
and accelerating their operation ? 1 Let us call this 

1 The intelligent reader will easily perceive that the analysis in the 
text is far from being final. Is A everything? That is hyper-Darwin- 
ism. Is A something but not everything? That view might be held. 
Is A a logical possibility in some departments — rather unlikely to be 
a fact in any? That is the view argued in these pages, — and so forth. 
I trust, however, that all the distinctions have been taken which are 
necessary for our argument — in addressing intelligent readers. 



CHAr. xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 207 

natural selection C. Or, recurring to our first point 
(letter A), are we to leave the question open what 
the tendency of individual variations may be ? In 
that case the meaning of "natural selection" will 
hover between A and C. This last ambiguity is per- 
haps the worst of all. It leads to the insinuating or 
implying of A by evolutionists when they are not 
prepared to affirm it definitely and still less to prove 
it. Too often when C, or even the truism B, is 
established, we are asked to admit that "natural 
selection " has been proved. Indeed, the whole pro- 
cess (C) is habitually treated as if natural selection 
not merely entered into it but were necessarily and 
everywhere the dominant factor in it — as if C were 
A ; as if progressive evolution, in which natural 
selection plays some part, might safely be called 
"progress by natural selection." 1 It is natural 
selection A — the natural selection which, according 
to hyper-Darwinism, stands alone — that incurs the 
gravest suspicion of relying upon chance in lieu of 
reason. And it is mainly, though not wholly, natural 
selection A that we shall have to keep in view after 
this. It is natural selection A that we cannot toler- 
ate in human affairs — least of all in morality and 
religion. 

Natural Selection B is a fact. — Natural selection 
— A, B, or C — means primarily "struggle" and 

1 The reader will please note that we are not repeating our objec- 
tion, developed in Part III. of this chapter. Even although we con- 
ceded Darwin's right to speak of natural selection A, if it exists, as 
leading to " evolution by natural selection," we must still complain of 
his (and his friends') question-begging and misleading usage in speak- 
ing so not only of A but of C. 



208 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

partial survival — viz. survival of the best (in one 
respect or in another). I cannot think that, since 
Malthus and Darwin, any one has the right to deny 
the existence of a selective process in nature ; and 
one of its effects must also be admitted — its effect 
in keeping each separate species up to the highest 
point of efficiency (natural selection B). In one sense 
therefore, even if hardly more than a truism, we make 
bold (as our first step) to affirm that natural selection 
exists. 

Natural Selection, C or A, is also to be regarded as 
a reality. — Perhaps the following consideration may 
enable us to take another step forward. Science now 
seems to teach that organic evolution is a fact, — 
that, in spite of their apparent fixity and distinctness, 
species have somehow grown out of each other, and, 
presumably, are growing still. Then, if that be so, 
and if a selective process among organisms is simul- 
taneously taking place, the two processes must have 
affected each other (C) if they were not really one 
process (A). In other words : if, from any cause 
whatever, variations capable of building up a new 
species are coming into existence, and if it is impossi- 
ble that all organisms should live out their full span, 
then the new varieties will be weeded, and weeded 
selectively, like the rest, and this process must at least 
contribute something towards maturing the slowly 
evolving types (C ; but A is possible), as well as 
towards maintaining in efficiency organisms of the 
types already constituted (B). Now, if this consider- 
ation be admitted, we may narrow the problem. We 
need no longer ask, Does natural selection exist ? Or 
even, Does it exist as a cause of progress ? We ask, 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 209 

Is it the only cause ? In an evolving world B implies 
C as a minimum, and suggests A as a possibility. 
Does A anywhere actually exist ? Does natural se- 
lection anywhere operate by itself alone ? That is 
our narrowed problem. That is our burning ques- 
tion. One school will say, Natural selection is so 
strong a force that we need postulate no other besides 
it. Another school will reply, Natural selection is 
perfectly credible as an auxiliary or accelerating force, 
but perfectly incredible as the only force. Soup 
(once more) is the better for a handful of salt, but you 
will never make salt into soup. If selection gets hold 
of a good thing it knows how to keep hold of it, or 
even how to push it on ; but it can originate nothing. 
It will also be possible to hold an opinion midway 
between these extremes. " Natural selection " by 
itself may be a conceivable cause of distinct species, 
yet it may be thought that other causes exist in 
nature which do the work more rapidly (Natural 
Selection A possible ; plurality of causes comes in, 
and Natural Selection C is the actual process). 

Analysis of Natural Selection C. — The example of 
one concrete force assumed to be working in com- 
bination with natural selection may make our mean- 
ing clearer. Let us take use-inheritance. Lamarckism 
and Darwinism can be held separately, or they may 
be united ; but [we have argued that] since Darwin 
has pointed to natural selection no one can reason- 
ably ignore it or utterly deny it. If we are to be 
Lamarckians at all, we must now be Darwinian 
Lamarckians. We may differ from Darwin as to the 
relative value of the two forces. Probably any direct 
evolutionary force which exists and operates must 



210 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

count for much more in the result than the indirect 
force of natural selection which co-operates with it. 
Nevertheless, natural selection must be producing 
some effect, if any process for the evolution of species 
is going on. 

If use-inheritance is working for evolution, natural 
selection will back it up in two ways, distinguishable 
from each other if not objectively distinct. Cases of 
relapse by " Atavism," below the standard already 
reached, will be wiped out ; natural selection will be 
a safeguard or rear guard to the process of evolution 
(Natural Selection B). And secondly, in proportion 
as the competition is keener, natural selection will do 
more and more to accelerate the process in a positive 
sense. As between the fuller and the less full 
instances of use-inheritance — the greater and less 
reproduction of serviceable " acquired qualities " — 
natural selection will {cceteris paribus) steadily award 
the prize to those specimens which most fully repre- 
sent the working of use-inheritance (Natural Selec- 
tion C in the proper sense). 

Another question might be asked here. Can we 
have Natural Selection A and Natural Selection C as 
distinct co-operating agencies ? Can natural selection 
in Darwin's favourite sense work as a part of the 
evolving forces in addition to its effect in the way of 
accelerating some other force ? Surely this can only 
be the case if in part of the field it is the only force ; 
i.e. if certain qualities are exempt from the operation 
of the more powerful co-operating evolutionary force. 
Even if you can imagine non-serviceable variations 
being presented along with others, the fruit of a dis- 
tinct evolutionary force, which are serviceable from the 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 2 1 1 

very outset, it is almost incredible that natural selec- 
tion A should winnow the non-serviceable variations 
so as to secure an advantageous remainder of any 
appreciable size. Any other evolutionary force which 
co-operates with natural selection must eclipse it as a 
rival, though it may welcome it as an ally. We can- 
not add the working of natural selection to the 
working (in the same field) of any directly telic 
force. But natural selection may multiply the results 
of the other force — if competition is keen enough. 

Let us try to go one step further still. As long 
as struggle lasts — natural struggle — struggle plus 
elimination, 1 natural selection is still at work. A 
force may come to the birth in the process of evolu- 
tion — shall we say, of evolution by natural selection ? 
— which eclipses natural selection itself in importance. 
According to Professor Lloyd Morgan, animal intelli- 
gence is a force of this kind. It is " far more rapid " 
than natural selection. 2 Biologically, it must be 
regarded as an intensifying of one valuable quality, 
11 plasticity," or adaptiveness and modifiability in the 
individual organism. The more intelligent, the more 
adaptable ; hence man, who possesses reason, is the 
most adaptable of all animals, and has spread over 
the whole world. Intelligent modifiability is inher- 
ited, as it were, in blank. Use-inheritance [not in 
blank] is improbable ; it seems unlikely, says Pro- 
fessor Lloyd Morgan, that " habit " is inherited in later 

1 Mr. Sutherland may be said to plead for elimination in the human 
race, but not for struggle ; Mr. Kidd for struggle but not for elimina- 
tion. And each of them calls his mutilated remainder natural selec- 
tion! 

2 Evidently natural selection A is assumed — non-telic variation. 



212 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

generations as an organic " instinct." * Abstract 
modifiability is transmitted, in the form of intelligence ; 
individual adj ustment, helped by teaching, — by the 
slender fund of animal "tradition," — does the rest. 
Yet even here, where a new force has arisen, natural 
selection is not abolished. The new force must, I 
take it, blend with natural selection, so long as 
struggle lasts. There will be now three effects of 
natural selection — (i) guarding the rear — killing off 
stupid members of the famliy ; (2) pushing on the van 
(killing off the less clever too); (3) giving a prefer- 
ence to the intelligent stock as a stock over non-intelli- 
gent or less intelligent competitors of an adjacent stock. 
This is a new point. It is another phase of Natural 
Selection C. We make a separate heading for it 
because it brings out most clearly the presence of 
intelligence as a new evolutionary force, or, otherwise 
regarded, as a new and advantageous quality. Some 
will describe the appearance of a new force or quality 
as being due to Natural Selection A ; we have 
explained above why we dislike speaking of new 
qualities as being " due to " natural selection. 

There is yet a further sense in which natural 
selection continues to work. We claim that even 
intelligent animals are affected by natural selection 
(A ?) — at least in regard to their physique. It is 



1 I am sorry that I have failed to understand Professor Morgan's 
subtler suggested substitute for use-inheritance. I cannot see how it dif- 
fers from simple natural selection {Habit and Instinct, chap. xiv.). Are 
the modifications postulated in the organism anything more than 
changes coincident with the variations in the germ ? How are they 
conditions of variation? Does not the selecting environment do 
everything — upon this hypothesis of Professor Morgan's? 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 213 

not in animals but only in man that we are told of 
an " arrest of the body." The old sort of struggle 
continues in the higher brutes, and the old lines of 
progress are prolonged. In one respect therefore 
the old and the new forces, the slow and the swift, 
are added to each other ; in another respect, — if 
we look to the growth of intelligence alone, — the 
two forces must be said to blend. And the blend- 
ing is in part an interference or a conflict. To a 
certain extent, intelligence is so thoroughly novel 
as to hamper its older comrade. If birds build 
nests not by instinct but by teaching, stupid birds 
which would otherwise have died off will learn the 
essentials of life (like stupid men), and survive ! 
So far, then, natural selection is thwarted. But only 
so far. It is not until Intelligence has become 
Reason that it proves strong enough to suspend 
natural selection. Among the animals, struggle still 
lasts, and the stupid bird will die out or " tend " to 
die out in times of difficulty ; though it will not 
vanish so promptly as it would have done if there 
had been no intelligence in the case, and if natural 
selection, or what is called natural selection, had 
been lord of all. The intelligent race will gain 
additional marks as against all non-intelligent races ; 
within the intelligent race itself, the prize will still 
go to the best — to the cleverest or swiftest or 
strongest. 

Can we finally decide whether or not we ought to 
believe in A as an actual process ? Is there any 
region in which " natural selection " acts alone ? Or 
— more broadly — is it legitimate to regard natural 
selection A as the great evolutionary force in nature? 



214 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

It looks like a question of figures. Are there can- 
didates enough ? Is the " pluck " sufficiently severe ? 
You may get enough of your chosen sort out of 
any random bunch of samples — if it is big enough. 
That is one view. Others again might affirm 
that the question is not one of numbers but of 
time. In (almost) endless time, any bunch that is 
regularly furnished will grow big enough by accu- 
mulation. 

Here Mr. Sutherland gives us one shred of evi- 
dence ; and perhaps we may be able to make use 
of it even if we do not dogmatically decide to re- 
gard natural selection as " a question of figures." 
The evidence is this, that the higher races in nature, 
when they produce offspring, follow a method of 
quality, not quantity. That implies that, in the 
higher races, natural selection, even if not sus- 
pended, has at least incomparably less room to 
work in. Yet evolutionary advance has certainly 
not been slower in these, the characteristically 
highest forms ! This fact does not seem very 
favourable to what is claimed for natural selection 
A, that we ought to regard it as a reality, and 
perhaps as the dominant reality in evolution. For 
either — 

(i) Though natural selection was predominant 
lower down, some new mysterious force has now 
been disengaged, which [more than ?] replaces it. 
A has become C ; or else 

(2) If, where the best evolutionary results are 
gained, natural selection cannot do much, we may 
hesitate to believe that it produces much effect at 
any part of the process. There must be other 



chap, xvn METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 2 1 5 

forces ; telic variation and use-inheritance are can- 
didates. Not A anywhere ; C everywhere. 1 

To repeat our conclusions then ; natural selection 
(A) is certainly not the only principle of evolution 
in nature. It is very doubtful whether there is 
any part of the field where it stands alone (whether 
natural selection A exists), though it seems meta- 
physically possible ; i.e. the supposition seems to be 
sense and not nonsense. On the other hand it is 
certain that the law of natural selection (B and 
especially C) is at work, with large effects, in every 
part of what is strictly called Nature. 



V 

In the next place, we have to approach the cen- 
tral part of our subject, by asking how far natural 
selection is applicable to human evolution. Here 
as elsewhere the burning question is whether nat- 
ural selection A can be applied to human affairs. 
But we must keep all three forms in view — A, 
B, and C. 

We must also distinguish between the biological 

1 An odd suggestion offers itself. Can we combine Mr. Sutherland 
and Professor Lloyd Morgan ? Can we hold that the higher animals 
are able to advance with less help from natural selection, because they 
have more help from their intelligence? One must note a distinc- 
tion ; physical evolution by means of intelligence is not identical with 
the evolution of rational intelligence, which Drummond, etc., believe 
" arrests " the body. Higher brute races are certainly intelligent, and 
(I suppose) are certainly evolving physically. — Dr. Mellone {Studies, 
etc.) puts a different construction on the whole question. He inclines 
to assume a psychical factor in all evolution, even of plants, — on 
Wundt's view, that plants are descended from animated ancestors! 
This is very un-Darwinian. 



2l6 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part m 

view of man — where natural selection is most likely 
to be at home — the sociological view, and the moral 
view. Man is still an animal, an organism, though he 
is also a citizen and a moral agent. 

First, then, biologically, does natural selection ap- 
ply to man ? 1 

The Struggle with the Beasts. — When we read in 
the Bible of man's dominion over the creatures, we 
naturally think of domesticated animals, or of those 
wild species which man — and woman — make use of 
for food, clothing, ornament, etc. But man's suprem- 
acy over savage and powerful animals is a far more 
wonderful fact. There must have been a period of 
sharp conflict. Even in the Old Testament (to quote 
it again) we have traces of the dread lest wild beasts 
should gain the upper hand, and make human life 
heavy with torturing anxiety. The conflict ended 
however in a decided victory for the seemingly weak 
race of man. His dominion became a reality. His 
fear and the dread of him affected even the most for- 
midable among his animal subjects. It was fixed that 
his life should follow its regular course, unhindered 
on any great scale by the evil beasts. They could 
only carry on a guerilla warfare. When they slay a 
man, it is an " accident," and, in spite of such excep- 
tions, the human race marches bravely onward. Men 
have emerged from this struggle for existence. The 

1 The " Arrest of the Body " seems to imply that physical evolution 
is at an end, and therefore that the force of natural selection, which 
makes for evolution, is also at an end. And in the closing chapter 
we shall quote names of high authority who deny that natural selection 
applies to man or at least to civilised men — Darwin, Professor K. Pear- 
son, Professor Lloyd Morgan. But it may be well that we should here 
look for ourselves into the details, and form our own judgment. 



char xvn METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 2 1 7 

struggle continues beneath them ; but they, with what- 
ever limitations and exceptions, are victors, and cham- 
pions of the world. Concurrently, they have learned 
— again, with certain limitations and exceptions — 
not to struggle a outrance against each other. There 
follows from these two attainments (once again, with 
some strange and saddening exceptions among the 
lower human races) that man has the awful preroga- 
tive and solemn privilege of dying a natural death. 
Such a thing is rare in the animal world; but men 
drink their cup of pain to the last drop, and pass, it 
may be, with unbandaged eyes behind the veil, into 
the unseen. 

Famine. — Emergence from struggle with animal 
competitors may signify nothing better than a liberty 
to die of famine. Natural selection does not govern 
the physiological development of men, for they have 
not overfilled the world ; but a local and temporary 
over-population not infrequently arises, and famine 
follows close upon it. Civilisation ought to have other 
means of coping with such an overplus ; nature treats 
it as a normal case of animal superabundance, and 
falls to selecting again by the old eliminating methods. 
The human harvest is weeded ; the strongest survive, 
weakened — probably not permanently injured ; others 
succumb. Here then is natural selection at work 
among men, and conceivably Natural Selection A, if 
Natural Selection A anywhere exists. Of course it 
will be much hampered, more hampered than among 
any of the animals, by the comparatively low rate of 
fecundity in man, though famine goes a certain way 
towards remedying that. Among the higher animals, 
as we saw, evolution has continued no less markedly 



2l8 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

than with the lowest, and we decided that some other 
factor making for progress must be in operation there 
besides natural selection (A). We have no similar 
assurance that biological evolution in the sense of 
progress is continuing among men — have we not 
heard of the "arrest of the body"? If evolution 
continues it must owe its strength to something be- 
sides the recurrence of famine. That is not frequent 
enough. It does not " eliminate " severely enough 
to enforce progress, even if it tends that way. 

On the other hand, famine has been no rare thing 
among savages — no rare thing even in the history 
of the civilised world. For good or for evil, elimina- 
tion has acted on mankind through this agency ; and 
yet every civilised government, even the hardest, is 
ashamed of famine, and overwhelmed with a sense 
of defeat when its people are starved. Probably, if 
famine were allowed to stalk the world unchecked, 
we should see the selection of a corresponding physi- 
cal type in the human races ; a low type ; prolific ; 
tenacious of bare existence ; never rising much above 
the margin of subsistence and possible survival. The 
upward path lies elsewhere. 

Pestilence is another eliminating agency which 
takes the weak and spares the strong, though it is 
much more likely than famine to leave behind it dan- 
gerous and enfeebling " dregs " in those who recover. 
It has been supposed, indeed, that the Jewish race 
owes some of its health to the fact that the hideously 
insanitary conditions of the mediaeval ghettos killed 
off the weak. Strange if the most sanitary and the 
least sanitary conditions should alike result in pro- 
ducing a healthy human type ! But there seems 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 219 

every probability that the Jews were already one of 
the toughest of human stocks when they entered 
that furnace. They emerged hardened still further ; 
ordinary human races might have succumbed. If 
we fell back on "natural selection, " not sanitation, 
to make our people healthy, we might succumb ! 

It is not to be denied that pestilence is relatively 
advantageous. If the world must go on under con- 
ditions of filth, it is better for the race that the 
resulting diseases should blaze up in intermittent 
epidemics, carrying off the weakest, than that they 
should linger on as a chronic leaven of weakness and 
pain, tainting the whole race. But it rests upon us 
to find a better system than the serviceable pesti- 
lence. I say again in all seriousness, if we selfishly 
fell back upon laissez faire, natural selection might 
eliminate us all. Civilisation may well have softened 
our fibre in some respects ; and homo sapiens has no 
title-deeds to life guaranteeing him its continuance. 
Of all conceptions of the end of the (human) world, 
none perhaps could be more ghastly than the vision 
of a race dwindling away, from vice, from self- 
indulgence, from inherited disease — a race that 
could not rise to the responsibilities of reason and 
conscience, but called " sauve qui peut " when danger 
came, with the result that from the ensuing stam- 
pede none escaped without fatal injuries. If we fall 
too low, wise nature will simply stamp out all of us. 

And yet we have in pestilence, while it lasts, an 
accessory selecting agency (Natural Selection C), 
with the drawback noted, that the monster leaves the 
mark of his talons upon many who escape with their 
lives. 



220 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part ill 

Vice. — Mr. Sutherland lays much stress upon the 
excellent results due to elimination of the vicious. 
This is of course Natural Selection B, and nothing 
more. Prolong to infinity the elimination of vicious 
persons — will that develop virtue ? At least it would 
not, upon any view, improve its quality. Another 
favourite idea is that any special vice, if left un- 
checked — e.g. drunkenness — will burn itself out by 
natural selection. Dr. G. A. Reid's " Present Evolu- 
tion of Man" 1 argues for this pleasing possibility. 
Surely this is folly. Men are not of distinct kinds, 
as the old Gnostics supposed. We can acquire quali- 
ties by developing their germs ; we can make the 
transition from the class of the sober to that of the 
drunken. It is only too easy ! Frightful as are 
the penalties of such vice, when have they proved 
sufficient to counteract the charms of jollity and 
good fellowship, and of a " moderation " which so 
easily becomes immoderate ? Mr. Sutherland him- 
self implies that each generation or two develops its 
own criminal class, its own profligates. Assuredly 
upon that point he is credible. Human nature is 
versatile, and man is weak ; a new crop of drunkards 
may easily be grown as the old ones die out. If you 
leave everything to natural selection, that is how the 
world will go. 

Crime, or human justice punishing crime, is also a 
form of Natural Selection B. Eighty or a hundred 
years ago criminals were " eliminated " wholesale, 
with little profit to society ! The problem of human 
advance proves unexpectedly complex. Brutal vio- 
lence on the part of the law provoked more crime 

1 Quoted in Habit and Instinct and elsewhere. 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 221 

than it repressed. Even at the present day, how- 
ever, we do some "eliminating." We hang a few 
criminals, and we seclude others, both men and 
women, for long terms of imprisonment, during 
which terms at least it is impossible for them to pro- 
duce offspring. We may attribute these results to 
Natural Selection if only in this sense, that the re- 
duction or checking of population was not the design 
of our criminal law, but an incidental consequence. 

It is a favourite idea with some students of society 
that "the sterilisation of the unfit" ought to be car- 
ried very much farther. Theoretically, one is tempted 
to sympathise with the opinion, but it is doubtful 
whether any such mechanical methods will do much 
for human welfare. 

War is among the strangest and saddest of man's 
institutions. Systematised violence and wholesale 
slaughter are new things in the animal world. War 
has been immensely widespread and potent in the 
course of human development. Socially, we saw 
that, as between community and community, war has 
often done good. In early days the best fighters are 
generally the best tribe ; and war has not infrequently 
become a pioneer of civilisation. But, alas ! at what 
a cost ! Morally and socially, the cost is beyond 
reckoning. And biologically, or in its bearing on 
individuals, war has usually snatched away the fittest 
and left the weak or the cowards to become the 
parents of the next generation. In early days, when 
individual valour counted for much, war exercised 
some influence in the way of selecting the best — 
backed as it was by a sexual selection ; redcoats have 
always charmed the gentler half of the race. But in 



222 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

recent times the characteristic effect of war is down- 
right evil, as when the Napoleonic campaigns (it is 
supposed) lowered the stature of the whole French 
nation. War is a selecting agency of great influence 
turned upside down. 

Religious Celibacy has possibly had more conse- 
quences, good or bad, in its moral and social than in 
its physiological bearings, and it is a historical rather 
than a natural force ; still it may be mentioned here 
for convenience. When you take account of Buddh- 
ism as well as of Christianity, you perceive that re- 
ligious celibacy has been a phenomenon on a vast 
scale, and with a gigantic influence, like war. Like 
war, too, it has selected steadily in the wrong direc- 
tion. The best and finest spirits were withdrawn 
from family life ; the inferior types were left to per- 
petuate their qualities in offspring. 

We see then that famine may possibly show the 
working of Natural Selection A within narrow limits ; 
pestilence and disease, if they do anything positive, 
must be ranked in Natural Selection C, as mere ac- 
cessories to some better force ; the fatal or sterilising 
consequences of vice and crime do no more than pro- 
tect the rear — Natural Selection B ; war and religious 
celibacy select, but select pretty steadily on the wrong 
side. 

It does not appear therefore that natural selection 
achieves much for progress, or much even for ad- 
vance of any kind, in any one definite direction, 
within human affairs, when viewed biologically. The 
view of natural selection implied in the doctrine of 
the " arrest " of the human " body " is upon the whole 
confirmed. 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 223 

But, if it were the best thing in the world, man- 
kind cannot make use of natural selection. We 
must keep each other alive and well, as far as we 
may ; humanity insists upon it. In point of fact, the 
civilised races are putting their chief reliance, for 
biological progress or safety, upon forces of a very 
different kind. There is first — for we are speaking 
here of man's physique — the provision, by laws and 
by administration, of a sanitary material environment; 
next comes the advance of medical skill, the diffusion 
of medical and sanitary knowledge, public opinion, 
law (requiring and forbidding certain individual acts), 
morality, religion. That is the line we must move on, 
whether we like it or not. And we have no reason 
whatever to suppose that we should get better results 
by " following nature " in a more brutal fashion. 

In sociology Mr. Benjamin Kidd has claimed that 
all our salvation lies in natural selection, failing which 
" panmixia " entails retrogression. This is really bio- 
logical rather than sociological doctrine, and probably 
or certainly it is bad biology. There is little or no 
true struggle for existence among human beings ; 
thank God for that ! Reason and our moral nature 
make it impossible ; and yet we seem to have escaped 
retrogression. Mr. Kidd dwells on the necessity of 
struggle, while he says nothing about elimination ; 
and he applies his supposed biological truths directly 
to the human animal. Reason is held to affect the 
process chiefly in a dangerous way. It makes men 
clever, no doubt, but it makes them too selfish to strug- 
gle in the interests of the species, unless religion had 
come in to keep us up to the mark. Social evolution 



224 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

therefore depends on (what is called) natural selection, 
minus reason, but plus religion. So Mr. Kidd tells us. 
We should say that it depends upon reason plus 
morality plus religion. And since it depends on rea- 
son, it depends on those who have reason most fully, 
and yet are brothers to those who have least of it ; in 
other words, social progress depends upon great men. 
We lesser men stand on their shoulders ; as reasonable 
beings, we share in their discoveries. On their side 
they are not independent of us, the little men. Even 
the ruthless Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have made 
that confession. "Why," he asked of David, "have 
you put those tiny troops and guns into the corner of 
my portrait ? I ought to be alone." The embarrassed 
painter apologised as best he could. He thought that 
the sketch of the army in the background had a his- 
torical interest, etc., etc., when Napoleon, having re- 
covered his good temper, remarked, "After all I owe 
a good deal to these worthy little men." Well might 
he say so ! 

Finally, among the different human provinces, we 
have the assertion that natural selection prevails in 
morals. 

Professor Alexander alleges this of moral ideas. 
They struggle against each other, and the fittest sur- 
vive. Stripped of metaphor, the meaning is that free 
discussion is a condition of progress in moral thought. 
Surely, it is one condition. But it is a psychical con- 
dition ; it implies reason ; it implies the power of the 
great man to indoctrinate others. 

Mr. Alexander has not affirmed literal natural se- 
lection. It was impossible that he should, though in 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 225 

some respects he has gone too near it, and has thus 
exaggerated the mutual repulsiveness and exclusive- 
ness of distinct types of ethical thought. 

But, after all, is not the main point here just the 
one which Mr. Alexander (following Darwin) takes 
for granted ? Whence come the new varieties ? In 
dealing with morals, at any rate, this is all-important ; 
and in dealing with morals, at any rate, this cannot be 
answered. Even the victorious analysis of the evolu- 
tionist is baffled here at the central point — 

A spirit breatheth, and is still ; 
In mystery our soul abides. 

What one can say about new and sound moral 
ideas smacks painfully of platitude. Sometimes they 
may be championed at first by moral eccentrics. 
But usually the teacher will be well rooted in the 
past, drawing from it his best strength, seeking not 
to destroy, but to fulfil. Yet even he is likely to be 
proscribed, insulted, hated, and perhaps killed. Not 
till after his death will men recognise the truth of 
his words ; then they will quote them against his 
successors. 

Mr. Sutherland deals not so much with the growth 
of moral ideas as with the history of moral behaviour 
and the growth of character. The doing of what is 
right concerns him rather than the knowledge of it ; 
these are distinct problems. His belief is that we 
grow better because the vicious and sensual and vio- 
lent die off leaving few children. If there is any 
other evolutionary factor, it is so paltry in extent 
that we may safely disregard it. Natural Selection 
B is to smuggle in Natural Selection A concealed in 

Q 



226 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

his pocket, or is to disguise himself as his big brother. 
There is no such thing as a new life for the repentant 
sinner, and there is no influence (to speak of) between 
man and man. The filthy remains filthy still, and the 
righteous remains righteous still. We are born good, 
or else we are damned into the world. Elimination 
is first among moral forces ; the rest are nowhere. 

What is a truer theory of man's advance in 
actual goodness ? We help each other — by influ- 
ence, example, magnetism. And inwardly we are 
drawn or driven to righteousness partly by the bitter- 
ness of sin, partly by (not the pleasures of virtue, but) 
the beauty of holiness. It would be impossible to 
say which has the more power. The great inspiring 
personality who helps the multitude of little lives 
may be unoriginal and hackneyed in thought. It is 
the glow of spiritual goodness, plus a mysterious per- 
sonal endowment, perhaps of the nature of sympathy, 
that constitutes greatness and efficiency in this de- 
partment. But the " worthy little men " are quite 
as important here as the leaders. Mr. T. H. Green 
has told us that the Napoleonic wars were able to do 
some good, as well as mischief, in the world, just 
because of the courage and loyalty of the millions 
of private soldiers who were the victims of. one man's 
ambition. Faithfulness is the greatest of the virtues. 
Nor must we forget the stored wealth of the past in 
the form of moral institutions and traditions. 

We have one proof of the all-sidedness of Jesus 
Christ in this, that He is both the supremely original 
moral teacher and the supreme personal influence. 
He so crossed the currents of dignity and respecta- 
bility in His age that dignity and respectability, feel- 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 227 

ing " what such men call the ' necessity ' of putting 
Him to death," tried — strange endeavour ! — to 
" eliminate " Him ! Yet without strain or manifest 
extravagance the view can be advanced that it was 
His glory to put the great moral commonplaces into 
circulation as " current coin." We go to Him for 
"sweetness and light." He is the truth. We go to 
Him for transforming warmth, and He makes our 
cold ideals live, and melts our hearts. 

VI 

Natural selection then does not rule within the 
sphere of reason. We may now face the question, 
whether it can be said to account for the first emer- 
gence of reason and morality ? 

One is reluctant to admit this. Yet it seems as if 
there was almost the same warrant for ascribing the 
emergence of reason to natural selection as for im- 
puting to its agency any other new thing that arises 
in the course of evolution. Darwin's language we 
have pronounced ill-balanced. Natural selection does 
not create. In speaking as if it did, Darwin ignores 
a co-operating factor of even greater consequence, 
the capacity for aggregate variation in the material. 
Moreover, selection out of non-telic elements seems 
possible, if at all, only in the lower ranges of evolu- 
tion, where fecundity is greatest. Yet it may be held 
that reason emerges by means of the pjvcess called 
natural selection, and by means of a process in which 
natural selection, i.e. struggle and elimination, have 
certainly played some considerable part. On the as- 
sumption of evolution all along the line, it is implied 



228 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part m 

that [what is on the surface] a natural process has 
led up to the spiritual forces of morality and reason. 
Being a natural process, it has never wholly shaken 
off the influence of elimination. 

Of course, if Mr. Wallace is right, that there was 
a special supernatural intervention when reason ap- 
peared upon earth, it will not do to say even in the 
most guarded sense that natural selection created 
reason. But this quasi " miracle " is doubtful. Mr. 
Wallace himself has laid the greatest stress upon the 
preservation of reason by natural selection. We 
prefer his teaching on that point, with all its difficul- 
ties. — Why (for example) have the irrational races 
not died out ? Can we hold that the race nearest 
man, yet irrational, died out in competition with him ? 
Perhaps that is why it is so hard to find traces of the 
missing link. Presumably competition is always 
keenest between adjacent forms. Consequently, de- 
feated species may disappear outright, and their dis- 
appearance may explain that semblance of a gap 
between the nearest existing species, which is so no- 
ticeable in many parts of nature. I do not know 
whether this suggestion has been made before. If 
not, it may be offered for what it is worth to those 
who are interested in defending natural selection. 

VII 

The view now sketched of natural selection — that 
it is a real force, but strictly limited — has been out- 
lined in a spirit of sympathy with idealistic philoso- 
phy. Yet it is opposed to the views of several 
distinguished Hegelian idealists. Some of them 



chap, xvn METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 229 

would say that it goes much too far in commenda- 
tion ; others, not far enough. 

Professor Ritchie endorses natural selection with- 
out putting any limit to its application. It seems to 
give him all that he needs. There is evolution in 
Darwin, and there is evolution in Hegel; therefore 
natural selection accounts for everything, or at least 
it does so mutatis mutandis. We have tried to show in 
detail what the mutation is, and it is pretty extensive. 

(On the other hand, Professor Ritchie, as social 
philosopher, takes the opposite view, holding that 
reason has transformed the whole evolutionary process 
which it has touched.) 

Dr. Stirling and Mr. Sandeman, if I understand 
them rightly, regard natural selection as a piece of 
showy but flimsy thinking, that crumbles away as 
you handle it. They would deny that it explains 
anything, or that it applies to any part of the cosmos. 

Mr. Sandeman 1 believes thoroughly in the teleo- 
logical character of organisms, and finds every exist- 
ing species too perfect and harmonious and balanced 
to think of "bettering itself." Instead of the real- 
istic vision of cosmic horrors, he has a poet's vision 
of peace. He is not content with excluding absolute 
unfitness, but insists on denying even relative unfit- 
ness. " Whatever is, is right." It exists, it has sur- 
vived ; it triumphs ! Like the apostle Paul, Mr. 
Sandeman bestows more abundant comeliness upon 
our uncomely parts. With great force and penetra- 
tion he observes 2 that inherited rudiments have not 

1 Problems of Biology. 

2 This is a valuable corrective or supplement to Professor Ritchie's 
criticism of Dr. Reich, Darwinism and Politics, pp. 124, 133. 



230 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part hi 

been inherited as ready-made rudiments ; they have 
been built up along with the rest of the organism, 
taking their full share in the reciprocities of organic 
growth. Ex hypothesiy what is really (and not merely 
apparently and externally) useless must long ago 
have disappeared under the fierce strain of struggle 
for existence. Yes, very good. Nothing is abso- 
lutely unfit. The most rudimentary part must dis- 
charge some obscure physiological function in the 
rhythm of life. But are we really to suppose that 
the human body would be wrecked and ruined if 
(say) the ilium ccecum were somehow and safely 
evolved out of existence — as the surgeon on emer- 
gency may cut it out ? If such a body arose, would it 
not be a better body than ours, so far as hitherto 
evolved ? Is it unthinkable that nature should im- 
prove in this fashion ? Is not the whole living world 
relatively fit, indeed, but also, in many important 
details, relatively unfit, and is not an aborted organ 
very plainly marked by nature as, in one most impor- 
tant sense, unfit? 

Mr. Sandeman presumably implies the absolute 
systematic perfection of the whole universe as well as 
of each individual organism, and presumably affirms 
this postulate on metaphysical grounds. Even with- 
out repudiating it, we may urge that the idea is not 
applicable off-hand to the world of nature. Men will 
not readily surrender that dynamic view of nature, as 
a great and incomplete process, which Darwin and 
other evolutionary thinkers have taught us. The 
optimism of Mr. Sandeman's own creed does not 
force us to affirm the perfection of the individual 
organism save as a part in the process by which the 
perfect whole evolves itself. 



chap, xvii METAPHYSICS OF NATURAL SELECTION 23 1 

Dr. Stirling, on the other hand, finds the individual 
too poor for the work required of it in Darwinism. 
So far as I understand his position, it has two ele- 
ments. It nails Darwinism to the assertion that 
variation is casual (as it were causeless). And while 
repudiating such " casual " difference as a source of 
progress or as a possible beginning of specific types, 
it alleges the existence of the casual element under 
the name of " individual difference," which seems to 
be in Dr. Stirling's * view all but aimless and all but 
causeless. 

Perhaps the meaning is this. Every individual 
differs from every other member of the species. The 
difference does not affect the specific type or pattern ; 
it neither augments nor lessens efficiency. Each is a 
man, a fish, a frog ; yet each has its own peculiarity, 
its, so to say, casual peculiarity, indifferent to the 
specific type. To get species — law — rational sys- 
tem out of this most casual, most non-systematic of 
all things in the cosmos — that is the alchemy of 
Darwinism ; out of a brew of chance, to distil pure 
reason ! The casual difference is just the drop of 
unreason, of brute matter, dropped into the specific 
type in order to make it down into a new individual. 
This, so far as I can conjecture, is Dr. Stirling's 
meaning. No summation of individual peculiarities 
can ever amount to a specific difference. The things 
are heterogeneous in their very essence. 

1 1 am thinking of As Regards Protoplasm and Darwinianism, but 
mainly of Dr. Stirling's Gifford Lectures. The very acute mind of Dr. 
Stirling suggests innumerable objections to Darwinism. We have only 
dealt with what seems to be the central point — the denial that the 
alleged process is reasonably thinkable. 



232 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part in 

Now I will not attempt to criticise the metaphysics 
of this. But I venture to assume that such thinking 
lies too deep for science. No biologist would hesitate 
to speak of " identical twins " or would admit that 
heredity acts differently at each birth, merely in order 
to put itself metaphysically in the right in its act 
of bringing into the world a new individual. If 
" heredity " should not differentiate individuals, " en- 
vironment " would speedily do so. 

On the other hand, I submit that the "casual" 
variation which science speaks of is found, when 
science sifts its thoughts, to be one which — whether 
actual or only possible — might quite well conceiva- 
bly, by cumulation, amount in time to a new specific 
type. Of course there are difficulties in detail under 
Darwinism. But is Darwinism metaphysically incom- 
petent ? Does Natural Selection A outrage common 
sense when you understand its terms ? I think not. 
It is certainly limited in range; it possibly exists 
nowhere in nature as an actual process ; Darwin's 
name for his theory may be misleading ; but surely 
the theory is conceivable. 

Finally, let us observe that, even as a fiction, 
natural selection might be serviceable, though the 
truth were merely that species are things which might 
have resulted from infinitesimal changes in endless 
time. Even on that view " natural selection " might 
be a fruitful guide to investigation, not a blind alley. 
Per contra the fruitfulness of natural selection as a 
theory does not in itself certify it to be a true theory, 
whether in whole or in part. 



PART IV 

HYPER-DARWINISM — WEISMANN, KIDD 



CHAPTER XVIII 

A "fairy tale of science"? 

An intenser assertion of struggle — Not on ground of experiment; evi- 
dence is ambiguous — On ground of a theory of heredity — Darwin's 
theory (Pangenesis) assumed derivation of embryonic qualities from 
qualities and tissues of parental organisms — Use-inheritance possible 
or probable on this view — But " Atavism " forced the concession, 
some " gemmules " had passed on undeveloped from earlier genera- 
tions till they found their chance — Galton's figures for resemblance 
to ancestors — Hence theories asserting " continuity of the germ 
plasm " — Parable of the Hierarchy — Galton (" Stirp ") does not 
absolutely deny the possibility of use-inheritance — But in Weis- 
mann's earlier and more consistent views, founded on by Mr. Kidd, 
amphimixis is the only cause of variation — Extrusion of one of the 
" polar bodies " securing ( ?) non-identity of all offspring of same 
pair — Permutations and combinations of qualities of unicellular 
organisms — Nature selecting fittest adults, and in them best germ 
plasm — Parable of the suckers — Of the Nile — No new quality 
arises, but amount of each telling quality increases — Qualities arose 
originally, Lamarck fashion, from environment, when unicellular 
life lay open to its pressure — Unicellular organisms (propagating 
by fission) and germ plasm are potentially immortal — Correlation 
alleged between sex and (natural) death; now sex is absent from 
the unicellular world — Natural selection might account for the pre- 
dominance (if not origin) of sex if Weismann would assume the 
necessary competition — Romanes alleges that natural selection 

233 



234 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part IV 

might account for predominance of habit of dying natural death; 
but would not death by violence sufficiently prevent any race (im- 
mersed in the struggle) from falling into wholesale decrepitude ? — 
Origin of sex and death a mystery; or " chance " variation ! or 
effect of molecular constitution of germ plasm ! — Weismann's 
appeal to " natural selection," while he denies " struggle," is meta- 
physical in the worst sense — Recapitulation, and note of some of 
Weismann's changes of opinion before 1893 — Especially this 
change: Environment may do something to modify germ 
plasm ! — Making true use-inheritance conceivable, though not in- 
evitable — Mr. Kidd is anachronous — Panmixia, the absence of 
natural selection, is held to involve retrogression; important; ques- 
tionable 

Although we have passed under review a reaction 
from Darwinism, on moral grounds, or in the moral 
region, yet the theory which in recent years has ex- 
cited most attention, both popular and scientific, is 
not a qualification of the Darwinian doctrine of 
struggle, but an intensified assertion of it. Weis- 
mann, like the young Rehoboam, meets all discon- 
tent with a stiffer front and a severer policy. " My 
father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise 
you with scorpions." Darwin laid a terrible emphasis 
upon struggle for existence; but he admitted other 
causes of progress, such as sexual selection and use- 
inheritance ; Weismann admits no cause of progress 
whatsoever, except struggle for existence ; no selec- 
tion of the beautiful by the instinct of sex, and above 
all, no inheritance of acquired qualities. Such is 
Weismann's position; a scientific position in regard 
to technical questions of biology, held by a competent 
and highly distinguished, though also a highly spec- 
ulative man of science. But the position manifestly 
involves or suggests inferences regarding human 
progress : and these are worked out with devout 



chap, xvin A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 235 

fidelity, and with much ability and knowledge, by 
Mr. Benjamin Kidd. 

Primarily, the question between Darwin and Weis- 
mann is one of fact. Does experience confirm or 
does it refute belief in the inheritance of acquired 
qualities ? Unfortunately, this question like many 
others is more easily put than answered. Romanes 
tells us (in the preface to his Weismannistn) that he 
himself, acting under Darwin's immediate direction, 
instituted a long series of experiments on the point ; 
but that the results of these labours, which extended 
over several years, were never published, because the 
experiments " all failed," z.<?. presumably, they yielded 
incurably ambiguous results. " Nothing is so decep- 
tive as facts ; " the same facts are capable of such 
different interpretations. Apparently, Weismann has 
shown that the range of the " Lamarckian factor" 
was grossly exaggerated. To that extent facts openly 
support him. Whether he has proved that use-in- 
heritance does not occur at all is another question. 
The non-inheritance of mutilations, even such as have 
been persisted in by custom through age after age — 
Chinese foot-binding is a notable instance — furnishes 
a strong argument in Weismann's favour. And even 
hostile evidence can be robbed of much of its 
strength. Are there not blind fish in the mammoth 
caves of Kentucky, and in similar caverns elsewhere ? 
Have not preachers freely used this illustration of 
the bad results of evil habit? Yes; but if there was 
no premium on eyesight, fish which " happened " to 
be born blind would have an equal chance of living 
and begetting progeny with fish that saw. Give it 
time, and natural selection — or in the opposite case, 



236 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD partiv 

panmixia ; the cessation of natural selection — will 
produce all the results commonly attributed to use- 
inheritance. Use-inheritance would be a much 
quicker process ; but have patience with natural 
selection (or with panmixia), in a few tens of thou- 
sands of years it will do all that you require. Other 
suggestions are that, in dark caves, the fish which 
put part of its physiological capital into a superfluous 
sense would be positively disadvantaged by its eyes 
in the struggle for existence. Having wasted its 
resources on an inherited habit of luxury, it would 
fail in securing the necessaries of life. And again, 
Professor Ray Lankester has suggested that the 
fishes with good eyesight would find cracks by which 
they could swim away, leaving behind them only the 
blind or purblind. If any of these were suffering 
from mere accidents to their eyes, they would of 
course on Weismann's hypothesis beget a progeny 
having eyesight. But, if any had their vision con- 
genitally dim or dark, they would become the parents 
of those blind fish which we know. 

Thus the facts give an uncertain answer, and we 
are driven to make a statement of the blendings of 
fact with hypothesis which have been championed on 
one side or the other. Theories of heredity are in- 
vented to suit the facts, so far as known, but they lie 
far beneath the strata where verification is possible, 
at least in the present state of our knowledge. 

The simplest and most natural assumption is that 
the embryo, or its antecedents, spermatozoon and 
ovum, owe their qualities directly to the parental 
organisms. " The owl comes from the egg, but like- 
wise the egg comes from the owl." And this natural 



chap, xvin A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 237 

assumption leaves the door open for the further as- 
sumption that acquired qualities will be inherited. I 
do not see that it compels us to hold that view. An 
acquired quality may be (as it were) only skin deep — • 
having no reaction on the inner life of the organism 
— not stamping its mark there, and therefore not 
stamping its mark on the offspring, which reproduces 
that inner life in a new generation. If living shells, 
transported from a northern sea to the Mediter- 
ranean, assume the same bright markings found in 
native Mediterranean forms, who will believe that 
the change, however conspicuous, is the same thing 
as transition to a different species ? They are still 
essentially the same, and their offspring will be es- 
sentially the same, bright if developed in the Medi- 
terranean, dull if developed in the north. But that 
the deeper qualities of the parental life are all repro- 
duced by it in its offspring — transferred from it to 
its offspring — seems to correspond best to the 
proved nature of an organism as a unity or system, 
in which all parts are in reciprocal intercourse, and 
the whole determines all the parts. One mark or 
outcome of this reciprocity will be the alternation 
already spoken of, owl from egg, egg from owl. 

Darwin represents this natural assumption; but as 
it occurs in him it is attended by some peculiarities 
due to modern science. Science is bent on finding a 
mechanical cause for every mechanical result, and on 
eschewing mysticism. The effort is laudable, if it 
can be carried through without injustice to the facts 
of organic life. But it results in a singularly self- 
confident materialism ; or so one is tempted to think. 
It analyses the organism into a bundle of qualities, 



238 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

and postulates a separate speck of matter or living 
vibration for each quality distinguishable from the 
rest in human thought and speech. 1 The description 
applies, among other hypotheses, to Darwin's "pro- 
visional hypothesis of pangenesis." According to 
Darwin's view, each part of the adult and vigorous 
organism gives off extraordinarily minute "gem- 
mules." These work their way to the parts of sex, 
and pass on as "packets," one paternal "packet" 
blending with one maternal "packet" in the embryo, 
and gradually reconstituting a body, each gemmule 
helping to build up an organ, or limb, or tissue, like 
that from which it sprang. Facts, however, insist on 
a serious qualification, the facts known as atavism. 
Often, or always in some features, the child resem- 
bles a grandparent or remote ancestor more than it 
resembles either parent. How is this to be explained ? 
Again we are forbidden to fall back on mysticism, or 
to omit the discovery of a physical and mechanical 
cause. There must be gemmules from far-away an- 
cestors developing in each child. It follows that in 
each embryo some gemmules must fail to develop, 
but, instead of perishing, must pass on as gemmules, 
with all their latent qualities ; must enter with other 
gemmules into new packets constituting ova or sper- 
matozoa, and must find their chance of development 
in a later generation by a triumph of atavism. Thus 
it is only partially true in Darwin's opinion that the 
parent organism and the reproductive material are in 
full sympathetic reciprocity. Distinct part of the 
latter, according to Darwin, though in this genera- 

1 This criticism is urged very tellingly by Mr. George Sandeman in 
his Problems 0/ Biology. 



chap, xvin A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 239 

tion is not of this generation ; though living in, and 
by, the living body of the adult of to-day, it owes its 
origin to other bodies, whose qualities it hopes one 
day to reproduce when its chance arrives. The owl 
comes from the egg } but the egg comes only in part 
from the parent owls. Another distinct part of the 
living embryonic substance owes its being to older 
birds. Mr. Francis Galton, great experimentalist and 
statistician, has arrived at a formula for the higher 
races. One-fourth he calculates belongs to each 
parent, one-sixteenth to each grandparent, and the 
remaining aliquot part of one-fourth, I presume, to 
remoter generations still. 

It must not be supposed, however, that Galton 
agrees with Darwin in believing in pangenesis. His 
position is much more nearly that of Weismann. 
He can only hold that one-fourth part in each of the 
offspring is (on the average ?) like in quality to the 
father or mother, not, as Darwin might do, that 
the child owes its being and nature in the proportion 
of one-fourth to the father, and the same to the 
mother. By a fuller consideration of the problems 
of atavism, and by a growing hesitation to admit the 
inheritance of acquired qualities, doctrines of the 
continuity of the germ plasm have gained in popular- 
ity and acceptance. There are difficulties about the 
facts. In certain animals it appears that, at a very 
early stage in embryonic development, part of the 
segmented ovum is differentiated for reproductive 
purposes. Here then the parental germ may be 
styled continuous with the germs which are prepar- 
ing in the reproductive tissues of the growing em- 
bryo. But in most cases it is a long time before we 



240 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

reach specialised reproductive cells. The germ cells 
seem to be derived, if only at this early stage in de- 
velopment, from somatic cells, and continuity with 
the past seems to be disproved in favour of reci- 
procity in the present. At this point, therefore, 
Weismann and others take a deeper plunge into sub- 
microscopic minuteness and unverinable theory. 
They cannot prove continuity of germ cells, but noth- 
ing can hinder their asserting continuity of germ 
plasm or the like, i.e. continuity of the invisible sub- 
stance, believed to form part of the contents of [re- 
productive] cell nuclei, and to be the vehicle of 
hereditary qualities. 1 On this view of things we 
must alter our parable. The owl comes from the 
egg — true ; but the egg (the microscopic living em- 
bryonic ovum) never came from the owl — never ; 
the owl came from the egg, and the egg came from 
the egg. The living hereditary substance, the as- 
sumed carrier of the qualities of heredity, is called by 
Galton " Stirp." Weismann calls it " Germ plasm," 
subsequently " Idioplasm," and later on introduces 
further refinements and subdivision. If we may take 
an ecclesiastical analogy, the ordinary doctrine of 
organic reciprocity corresponds to the Protestant doc- 
trine of the Church. The ministry are specialised 
organs of the Church, kindred to all other parts of 
the living Church tissue, capable, if the need arises, 
of being replaced by any other part without serious 
damage to the true life of the Church. On the other 
hand, " continuity of the germ plasm " corresponds 

1 The phrase (in the allied form, " continuity of the germ proto- 
plasm ") is not of Weismann's coinage, but goes back to a previous 
writer, Jaeger. 



chap, xviii A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 24 1 

to the High Church doctrine of apostolical succession. 
Age after age the Church is made or created by the 
hierarchy, but the hierarchy is never made by the 
Church ; it is made by the antecedent hierarchy. 
There is no reciprocity, there is no fellowship, but 
aristocratic superiority on the one side, and absolute 
dependence on the other. If the hierarchy perishes, 
or is interrupted, everything is lost. A strange be- 
lief surely ! Yet who knows ? If certain views are 
biologically correct, the High Church school of Chris- 
tians may claim to be more scientific than any others. 
But are these views proved, or even permissible ? 

In their full (and quasi-High Church) severity, 
these views are to be found only in Weismann's ear- 
lier writings, where Jie develops his more character- 
istic positions. " Stirp " always differed from " Germ 
plasm " ; for Galton always admitted a certain modi- 
fied action of " use-inheritance " or " the Lamarckian 
factor." And, along with other changes registered 
by Romanes in 1893, Weismann had by that time 
withdrawn his former doctrine of the " absolute sta- 
bility " — so Romanes puts it — " of the germ plasm," 
and had come over to Galton's view, according to 
which the influence of environment in originating 
variations, and so contributing directly to evolution- 
ary progress, while slight, is yet not to be denied. 
However, the earlier form of Weismann's views must 
be regarded as the more coherent and original. It is 
almost as interesting as a fairy tale, if possibly not 
much truer. To an outside critic, at any rate, Weis- 
mannism seems to have grown latterly after the man- 
ner of a false hypothesis, not after the manner of 
truth. It has modified itself endlessly by adding on 



242 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

ingenious epicycles. Instead of leading to new gen- 
eralisations and broad views of things, the changes 
have made it complex and artificial-looking. True or 
false, the older Weismannism is at any rate clear, 
— clearer than the new. And Mr. Kidd's sociology 
seems to appeal to the Weismann of 1893, or of still 
earlier years, not to the author of the later more hesi- 
tating statements. 

At first, then, Weismann had held that germ plasm 
was never affected by the life of the organism in 
which it was temporarily lodged. It was perfectly 
continuous, absolutely stable. 1 Yet varieties occurred ; 
for evolution occurred ; and there was no cause of 
evolution except natural selection ; and natural selec- 
tion could only work upon given materials. Whence 
then did varieties proceed? From amphimixis and 
from that alone ; in other words, from the processes 
of bisexual parentage. There was " nowhere else " 
for variations to come from on this early and rigid 
theory of Weismann's ; and the theory threw a de- 
lightfully definite and clear light on the cloudy prob- 
lem, What is the origin of variations ? No doubt 
there was a difficulty here. If individual variation 
is due simply to parentage, why are not all the off- 
spring of the same pair facsimiles of each other? 
Can science clear up this mystery ? Weismann in 
his early phase explained it by the extrusion of one 
of the two polar bodies expelled from the ovum shortly 
before — or more usually shortly after — fertilisation. 
I do not know that I understand this. Up till now, 

1 Apparently the phraseology is Romanes'. To a layman it looks 
tautological. Romanes himself (pp. 49, 86 of Weismannistri) seems 
unable to keep the two terms distinct in their application. 



chap, xviii A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 243 

germ plasm has been described as so continuous or 
so stable, that it has threatened to make all the off- 
spring of the same pair identical with each other 
if the two parental germ plasms are simply added 
together. But now, wise nature casts away half 
the qualities or potentialities of the germ plasm, 
when it throws away half the substance, and the 
dividing line is drawn at random, or at any rate is 
never twice the same. Weismann's later view, to 
which Romanes had thought that he was bound to 
come — and on which Romanes looks with less dis- 
favour — seems to involve the same difficulty. How 
can cell segmentation divide the germ plasm into 
different potentialities, corresponding to differences 
exhibited later in the different members of the litter 
or family, if we are to hold to the high stability of 
germ plasm ? Or how on earth can we reconcile this 
with the doctrine that amphimixis is the only source 
of variations ? Moreover, are we to understand that 
germ plasm, " which grows very rapidly," never grows 
at all, or never segments at all, after birth ? If it did, 
apparently it would be constantly changing its quali- 
ties. It would be highly z/zzstable. 1 

Nature then, according to Weismann, had been 
playing an immense game of permutations and com- 
binations, if not since the dawn of life itself, yet 
ever since the first origin of multicellular organisms, 
whether plant or animal. All of these become uni- 
cellular at the beginning of the embryonic process, 

1 The polar bodies had to serve as the explanation of a second 
difficulty — one of size. It also is mysterious. On it also Weismann 
has changed his ground. And by that change also he secures greater 
approbation from Romanes, 



244 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

when the new life is constituted by fertilisation. And 
therefore " ontogeny " briefly recapitulates " phy- 
logeny," the individual organism passing rapidly 
through the stages by which evolutionists hold that 
the species has grown to be what it now is. The 
multicellular or higher organisms are only, as it were, 
loose appendages to certain peculiarly qualified uni- 
cellar organisms, like great flickering shadows of 
dwarfs or little children cast by a bonfire. The 
higher organisms perpetuate themselves qua uni- 
cellular. They may seem bicellular, because of the 
curious sexual split into male and female ; but we 
must remember that ovum and spermatozoon com- 
bine in one to form a new life history. And all the 
future of the individual life lies in nuce in that single 
cell. And we can further trace this determination 
of the qualities of maturity by the qualities of the 
embryo right back through the continuous germ 
plasm to an age when the whole world of organisms 
was unicellular. No fresh quality has come to any 
living creature since life began its ascent. All were 
implicitly present in the unicellular world; all have 
been slowly evolved and improved by nature's gigan- 
tic game of permutations and combinations. She 
has written out by degrees every possible grouping 
of the qualities of protoplasm, and has drawn her 
pen remorselessly through the inefficient ones. The 
favourite image or parable for this view of heredity 
— given e.g. by Huxley in the notes to his Romanes 
lecture — is that of a plant propagating itself by 
suckers. Root grows from root; every here and 
there the root sends upwards a perfect plant, a glory 
of leaves, flowers, fruit ; in the absence of these the 



chap, xvin A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE »? 245 

root could not be healthy ; yet plant is never derived 
from plant, and still less is root derived from plant ; 
every root is derived from root ; every plant is derived 
from root. Another image we might use is that of 
a river like the Nile, flowing through countries which 
can yield it no tributaries. The great river flows 
majestically on, essentially the same as it was many 
hundreds of miles up channel; imparting life wher- 
ever it goes, but receiving nothing. Such a river of 
life is "germ plasm," flowing through the genera- 
tions, yielding to all of them support, but never 
affected by them. 

There is, however, a difference which our images 
fail to bring out. On Weismann's view, evolutionary 
change is always at work, acting through natural 
selection. Permutations and combinations are always 
being remodelled — let us say, combinations of play- 
ing cards. The cards were originally dealt at the 
dawn of animal and vegetable life ; and no fresh kind 
of card has ever been introduced. Yet the " hands " 
with which the game is played have, on the whole, 
steadily improved from generation to generation, and 
from age to age. How is that possible ? Because 
these cards are alive. These cards multiply, aces 
begetting aces, and kings begetting kings. Many 
and many a hand has been torn up and flung away 
in the process of natural selection; and accordingly 
the surviving hands have become very strong — all 
court cards, or trumps, or powerful sequences. 1 

1 I do not know if Weismann means this ; but it seems to lie in the 
theory. Efficient begets efficient, as surely as non-efficient begets non- 
efficient. Quantities seem capable of indefinite improvement, though 
the theory admits of no fresh ultimate quality. 



246 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

At the back of this process of combinations we 
have another — the original dealing or the original 
making of the cards. To what was that due ? To 
the Lamarckian factor, to the direct action of environ- 
ment, stamping itself upon the isolated living cell. 
There is an absolute contrast, it is assumed, between 
the two periods in the history of life. In the first, 
variations were due directly to the environment, not 
at all to natural selection, 1 which only acts upon vari- 
ations submitted to it by sexual reproduction. In 
other words, environment may be called the judge in 
natural selection, but there is no need of environment 
as a judge when it is itself the maker of the things to 
be judged. If it is the maker, it gives a guarantee 
along with its goods. If or so far as Lamarckism is 
true, Darwinism, with its " natural selection," becomes 
secondary if not superfluous, ranking at best as an 
auxiliary and accelerating force. Thus, if the uni- 
cellular organism bears the stamp of environment, it 
has directly adjusted itself to the conditions of life ; 
it is already certified as " fit to survive." But, in the 
second great period, we are to believe that environ- 
ment is helpless and natural selection omnipotent. 
This is less arbitrary than it seems. In the unicellular 
age the living creature is all surface, and, as it were, 
at the mercy of environment. But in the multicellular 
age the really vital matter, the " germ plasm," is 
supposed to be carefully hidden away inside a body 
and out of reach — hidden within a body and even 
(the theory says) independent of its vicissitudes, so 
long as the body lives. The only way in which 
nature can now affect germ plasm is by killing off 

1 So Weismann as stated by Romanes. 



chap, x vui A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 247 

the body in which it resides, under sentence of 
"unfitness." Thus indirectly — natural selection is 
always indirect — and slowly — indirect processes of 
course are slow — evolution is pushed on. For in 
this fashion germ plasm is progressively improved ; 
and unicellular embryos, needing nothing from the 
mother beyond nourishment 1 up to and after birth, 
come to contain in themselves the promise and 
potency of reason, of genius, of greatness — of a 
Shakespeare or a Darwin. A little speck of matter, 
indistinguishable to human study from one of the 
lowest forms of life, and essentially nothing but one 
of these lowest forms, redistributed or regrouped, 
contains in itself what will necessarily ("bar" the 
accident of death) give the difference of a man from 
a beast, of a genius from a fool, of a saint from a 
scoundrel, or vice versa. So runs the doctrine. 

We have not yet stated Weismann's ingenious 
theory that the germ plasm, and unicellular organisms 
in general, are potentially immortal. Unicellular or- 
ganisms grow by fission; the child is a part of the 
parent; it is impossible to say, after the split has 
been accomplished, which is child and which is parent. 
Both are both ; or neither is neither ! The category 
or conception of parentage belongs to a higher sphere 
of life, and is inapplicable here. If either survives — 
and we are assuming the continuance of the species 
— both may survive. Each member of the race is 
potentially immortal. Never a natural death, but a 
violent death always, must weed its ranks. If germ 

1 Heredity is equal from the two parents. It seems therefore that 
Weismannism must be right in denying that the foetus draws anything 
beyond nourishment from the mother organism. 



248 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

plasm exists at all in continuity, it is hardly necessary 
to argue that the same thing must be true of it. Part 
of the germ plasm builds up a body, and undergoes 
in somatic form the doom of death ; part of the germ 
plasm survives as germ plasm, multiplying and re- 
plenishing itself (if only during embryonic growth), 
and ultimately — in some fortunate fragments — pass- 
ing into new lives. This thing need never die. 
Most of it will die; what is transformed into body, 
and what fails of attaining to fertilisation. But it 
need not die ; it is potentially immortal. So to say, 
the old original germ plasm may hand on the duty of 
building up a body to some of the more newly formed 
material, and, evading the chances of death, may 
refuse to quit the parental tissues till the moment of 
fertile sexual intercourse. It is potentially immortal ; 
practically, by the law of chances, it will be both 
mortal and short-lived. If pollen grains depend on 
the wind or depend on insects for doing their work, 
how much potentially immortal " germ plasm " must 
die in the history of every dioecious plant ! 

Unicellular creatures, however, are immortal, ac- 
cording to Weismann, rather qua non-sexual than 
qua unicellular. Sex and death are somehow corre- 
lated ; he believes that he has proved this by show- 
ing a general correspondence between the age at 
which species produce offspring and their natural 
term of life. This view of Weismann's is widely ac- 
cepted. A correlation between the fact of sex and the 
habit of dying a natural death is largely admitted. 

Death, then, as a natural and certain event, arose 
with sex, or in consequence of it. But how did sex 
originate ? Romanes asserts a self-contradiction in 



CHAP, xvni A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 249 

Weismarm, because at one time he says that the 
origin of sex was due to natural selection, at another 
time that it could not be. In Weismann's system, 
natural selection works upon the materials furnished 
to it by sexual. reproduction — upon the new varieties 
thus invented — upon the new permutations or com- 
binations of germ plasm, thus manifested, and brought 
up for judgment in the form of offspring. Still, I see 
no reason why natural selection should not sit in 
judgment upon sex itself, if sex somehow originated. 
No doubt the admission must then be made that 
Weismann's clear theory of variation had ceased to 
be available. Sex explains other variations ; what is 
to explain sex ? It must presumably itself have been 
a new variation when it appeared for the first time in 
a sexless world. Once it had appeared, it might 
well predominate. If some multicellular organisms 
propagated sexually, and others non-sexually, and if 
some of the offspring of sexual unions proved supe- 
rior in the struggle to any of their competitors, why 
then sex would be selected by nature 1 as advanta- 
geous ; the sexual specimens would tend to be the 
only ones that survived and reproduced their kind. 
The origin of sex, accordingly, would still be veiled 
in deep darkness. Weismann could say little more 
than that it " happened " to occur. That is very 
much what he does confine himself to saying "in 
the present state of our knowledge/' Yet it appears 
perfectly logical to say, not that natural selection 
brought sex into being ; natural selection originates 
nothing; it chooses between competing candidates ; 

1 May we say that, upon the whole, it is selected by nature, at least 
for the higher forms of life ? 



250 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

but that, from the first and until now, natural selec- 
tion has favoured sex, and has made it the pre- 
dominant reproductive method. This seems to be 
perfectly fair, if Weismann is willing to postulate 
the true condition of natural selection, viz. competi- 
tion ; in this case, competition between sexual and 
non-sexual forms. But I am afraid that may not be 
so. In view of Weismann's attitude towards the 
question of the origin of (natural) death, 1 one must 
concur in Romanes' criticism, that " ultra Darwinians 
use the term 'natural selection' with extreme laxity." 
The condemnation might be even more severely 
expressed. 

As to the origin of death, I must confess to find- 
ing the theory most unsatisfactory. Of course we 
are speaking of the origin of the habit of dying 
a natural death. Death by accident, death as prey, 
death (possibly ?) by disease, may all be assumed, in- 
dependently of this new and advantageous habit of 
retiring the seniors at a (roughly) fixed period. The 
new habit is said by Romanes to be advantageous for 
this reason, because, if multicellular (or, as he says, if 
sexual) organisms lived through ages, they would all 
become broken down and decrepit as the result of 
accident. For the life of me, I cannot see why this 
should be true. If there was any emergency with 
which unaided natural selection was able to deal, I 
should have said it was this one imaginary danger. 
Will the poor old things not be overtaken by their 
enemies ? Will they not starve from their prey 

1 See the paragraphs which follow. Of course, if there is a correlation 
of sex and death, the new question is really the same under a different 
name. 



chap, xvin A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 25 1 

escaping them, or being taken from them by younger 
competing creatures of their species who are not run 
down by accident or infirmity ? Have we any reason 
to believe that natural death — death from old age — 
has ever been common in the animal world (in plants, 
perhaps, yes) ; or have we any reason to regret its 
absence ? But, if it plays a scanty part, how could it 
secure the attention or obtain the approval of select- 
ing nature ? 

Next let us ask, how we can conceive of the pro- 
cess of selection being accomplished ? Race A is 
competing against race B. The prize is fitness to 
survive ; the penalty, of course, is just death. But 
race A, being clever enough to invent the habit of 
dying a natural death, therefore survives, while race 
B, which refuses to die unless by force, is therefore 
extinguished. 

This is not altogether such an Irish bull as it 
sounds. It may be held that a habit in any species 
of dying a natural death will produce a more efficient 
average individual. And so it might be possible, 
given the conditions, to think out the mechanism of 
the process. Here also, of course, natural selection 
does not originate the habit in question ; in this case 
dying. Death may be, as Weismann seems to hint, 
in obscure physiological correlation with the condi- 
tions of sexual reproduction. It may be put down as 
a " chance," i.e. until now an unexplained varia- 
tion. 1 One race "happened" to begin dying off, 
and profited thereby qua race. From it sprang all 



1 Use-inheritance will do nothing here. A habit of dying, after it 
has been acquired, assuredly cannot be transmitted to offspring ! 



252 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part IV 

the winning species, or else the same thing " hap- 
pened " over and over again. Death might also be 
said to be involved in certain permutations and com- 
binations of the germ plasm. That is the beauty of 
this unknown and unknowable substance. Nobody 
can say what it may not imply. If a rearranged pro- 
tozoon implies a Beethoven or a Shakespeare, if it 
gives him his programme, " Be thou among the great- 
est of the sons of men," molecular rearrangement in 
a germ cell may well imply the simpler programme, 
" Thou shalt surely die." And so, if he likes, Weis- 
mann may claim this memorable " variation," natural 
death, as due to the cause by which he seeks to ex- 
plain the origin of all variations. 

That, however, is not Weismann's line. Instead of 
that he protests that, in calling natural selection the 
cause of death, he does not mean to imply any com- 
petition between naturally mortal and potentially im- 
mortal stocks. Then pray what right has he to talk 
of natural selection ? Let us go back to first princi- 
ples. How does Darwin's title-page define natural 
selection? As " the preservation of favoured races in 
the struggle for life." If there is no struggle for life, 
and no preservation of a favoured race, neither is 
there any natural selection. Weismann's usage is 
worse than "extreme laxity." It aims at finding 
something cabalistic in natural selection, something 
talismanic. He must be reminded that, according to 
Comte, "nature" is the supreme example of an 
empty abstraction by which " metaphysical " persons 
think to explain phenomena, while giving no explana- 
tion at all. Weismann is a " metaphysician " of that 
type. He uses the phrase in lieu of an explanation, 



chap, xvm A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 253 

not knowing, and not caring to know, what he means 
by it. 

In taking leave of Weismann's fairy tale, it may be 
desirable to name one by one his characteristic posi- 
tions, and to add in regard to each whether he still 
retained it in 1893, or had modified it, or had can- 
celled it. 

First, Weismann used to hold that protozoa and 
protophyta — unicellular nucleated plants and ani- 
mals, the lowest forms of life known to us — were 
exempt from natural selection, and were subject to 
the agency of environment as a source of variations. 
Convinced by the experiments and arguments of 
other writers that conjugation and natural selection 
were both at work in these creatures, he has come to 
postulate still simpler forms of life unknown to ob- 
servation — creatures without even a nucleus — 
creatures (though not the only creatures) which are 
potentially immortal. Now, it is an immense weak- 
ness to have to postulate unknown forms of the living 
organism. Yet perhaps it may be contended that 
this one addition to the theory is sufficiently logical 
and coherent. Even in the protozoa and protophyta, 
as an unscientific person might say, " germ plasm " 
is hidden away in a nucleus, if not behind the wall of 
a special cell. In purely homogeneous living organ- 
isms, if such existed, all parts must share and share 
alike in the interactions between organism and en- 
vironment. 

Weismann held that the protozoa and protophyta 
were potentially immortal; also the germ plasm. All 
these positions stand, or stood, up to the date of 1893. 



254 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

He held that sex originated in the course of evolu- 
tion, and was absolutely due, whatever that might 
mean, to natural selection. This he still maintained. 

A similar view had been broached by him as to 
natural death ; he still maintained it. 

He had formulated a doctrine of "germ plasm." 
This has been modified, refined, elaborated, re-christ- 
ened, and, in fact, transformed more than once, both 
before and after 1893. But this and other technical 
changes of great importance do not sensibly affect 
the "fairytale," nor the basis of Mr. Benjamin Kidd's 
social gospel, preached by him in the name of Weis- 
mann. We do not therefore dwell upon these 
changes. 

Next there is a group of three very important 
points, which imply each other, and stand or fall to- 
gether ; that amphimixis is the only cause of varia- 
tions ; that environment is impotent to originate 
them, in view of the "continuity" and "absolute 
stability" of the germ plasm; that every higher and 
highest organism is simply a unicellular organism of 
an improved or rearranged kind, with its appendages 
and necessary consequences. The central point here 
is the stability of the germ plasm. Weismann gives 
that up (1893). The second point of our present 
group of three is therefore gone. In consequence 
the first point must be at least modified, and it turns 
out to be absolutely inverted. Amphimixis is never 
to be the cause of variations ; they are to go back to 
differences and irregularities in nutrition. At the 
same time, by a curious codicil, Weismann insists that 
these differences could never become effective unless 
when they were cumulated by amphimixis. Accord- 



chap, xvm A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 255 

ing to Romanes, this is simply a piece of obstinacy 
designed to show that, if Weismann was certainly 
half in the wrong, yet he may have been half in the 
right. Romanes therefore thinks it is to be dismissed 
as an unproved and improbable assumption. The 
third point also falls to the ground. The germ plasm 
of one of the higher plants or animals or men is not 
simply a one-celled creature rearranged ; it is such a 
creature, if you like, but modified as well as rearranged 
— modified to a certain extent all along the course of 
its " phylogeny," wherever variation occurred. 

Modified how far ? That is for us a very important 
question. Do Weismann's newer views admit of use- 
inheritance in the literal sense ? Or do they only 
admit of certain changes in the germ plasm, sympa- 
thetic to vital changes in the parental organism, but 
not necessarily initiating the same changes in the 
offspring ? In Romanes' language, does Weismann 
now accept representative congenital changes ( = true 
use-inheritance), or only the lower class or classes, 
nutritive changes ( = Weismann's new theory of the 
origin of variation), or nutritive and specialised? 1 
This is a question of importance for us as students of 
human progress. True use-inheritance, if it occurs, 
constitutes a possibility of rapid advance in contrast 
to the painfully circuitous method of natural selection. 
So far as I am aware Weismann has not spoken on 
this point. Reluctantly, and as it were casually, he 
has cancelled the central doctrine of his scheme, that 
of the absolute continuity and stability of germ 
plasm. It must be deemed at least possible, accord- 

1 Romanes gives as an example of the last : " The fathers have 
eaten sour grapes, and the children " were born with wry necks ! 



256 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

ing to Weismann's later views, that use-inheritance 
should take place. The question will demand more 
imperiously than ever the eliciting of an answer from 
facts. Accordingly, when Mr. Benjamin Kidd builds 
his sociology on the absolute non-inheritance of 
acquired qualities, he is building on a rock perhaps, 
but on a rock whose discoverer himself has under- 
mined it and stored it with explosives. This is not 
our only objection to Mr. Kidd's premises, but even 
in itself it is a grave matter. 

It is possible to postpone as a merely technical 
point the question, whence come the variations with 
which natural selection deals ? So long as such vari- 
ations do arise, it may be said, there is little need to 
trouble ourselves with the how or the whence. But 
Weismann's dealing with the question is less vigorous 
and rigorous than it was. His fairy tale has suffered. 
As they now stand his doctrines are less astonishing, 
and somewhat less incredible. 

There is still one more point to name ; we may call 
it the second basis of Mr. Kidd's sociology. It is 
held that where progress ceases you have in its place 
not stagnation, but actual retrogression. No prog- 
ress, but by natural selection; nothing but retro- 
gression, where panmixia prevails. So far as I am 
aware, Weismann has never recanted this position, 1 
which has tremendous sociological consequences in 
Mr. Kidd's hands. Yet it seems a characteristic bit 
of the newest science, a piece of purely deductive 

1 In 1895 ne ma de * ne admission that panmixia could not in itself 
fully account for retrogression, though it tended that way; and the 
obscure doctrine of germinal selection was brought in as a supplement 
to panmixia. 



chap, xvm A "FAIRY TALE OF SCIENCE"? 257 

reasoning from facts, or from a mixture of facts and 
theories, and a deduction of doubtful logical cohe- 
rence. Scientific friends inform me that there is great 
division of opinion among men of authority 1 on the 
question how panmixia must work out. Will it mean 
continuous retrogression? Will it reach an average 
mediocrity and stop there ? Will it mean a divergence 
into two or more distinct types? Doctors differ. 
Surely then Mr. Kidd has planted his feet on a 
second slippery stone. As a matter of obvious prob- 
abilities one does not see how continuous embodi- 
ment of the stable germ plasm of to-day should or 
could mean continuous degeneration and progressive 
inefficiency. On a first glance, at any rate, that 
view seems absurd. And the division of opinion 
among biological experts emboldens one to break 
away from the dogmatism of Professor Weismann 
and Mr. Kidd. 

1 Professor Baldwin, the psychologist, refuses, for one, to admit 
Weismann's theory of necessary retrogression. 



CHAPTER XIX 

HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY — STRUGGLE MADE 
ABSOLUTE MR. KIDD 

Resemblance to Comte — Intenser emphasis on biology [cf. Mr. Platt- 
Ball] — (i) Panmixia = degeneration is inconsistent with dreams of 
socialism or of final balance — Selfishness, however, may not care 
for remote consequences — [Ought Panmixia further to imply extinc- 
tion?] — Also, social " statics " are blotted out — And evolution be- 
comes almost identical with progress — Could not Mr. Kidd save 
many essential positions without this assumption? — (2) Next, if 
progress implies struggle — And selfish reason makes unwilling to 
struggle for good of the race, supernatural counterpoise of religion 
must help, as hitherto — Now, Weismann had riddled his own posi- 
tion with qualifications — Kidd also appeals to biology by a doctrine 
of the social organism; but everything here depends on philosophy, 
not biology — (3) First, the doctrine of reason; reason is formal, as 
with A. J. Balfour, Darwin, Drummond — For Mr. Kidd also holds 
that biological law applies without a break to rational man — Yet it 
disturbs the process of evolution — And Bagehot, Stephen, Drum- 
mond have noted other changes due to it — Can it be wholly evil? 

— Balfour and Kidd repudiate Kant or Coleridge's deeper sense of 
" reason " — But they cannot avoid such sense if it lies in the word 
and in the fact — (4) Secondly, doctrine of religion as anti-rational 

— Not = " future judgment"; that is rational! — Can we believe 
the irrational? — Does not Kidd tamper with Christian equalitarian- 
ism? — Biologically; variation may be purposeful and professive — 
Historically; reason is progressive; by rational methods — Religion 
its fulfilment — It needs a force to give it motive and constancy 

There is a great deal to recall Comte in Social 
Evolution. We have a long and interesting appeal 

258 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 259 

to history. We have the doctrine of altruism assumed, 
without inquiry or justification, as a. definition of the 
moral ideal ; though it is ousted from the place of 
legitimate authority which Comte gave it by Mr. 
Kidd's anarchical conception of reason as purely self- 
ish, and has to borrow its credentials from non- 
rational religion. Above all we have the appeal to 
biology more unhesitating than ever. 1 " It may be 
remarked that nothing tends to exhibit more strik- 
ingly the extent to which the study of our social phe- 
nomena must in future be based on the biological 
sciences, than the fact that the technical controversy 
now being waged by biologists as to the transmission 
or non-transmission to offspring of qualities acquired 
during the lifetime of the parent, is one which, if de- 
cided in the latter sense, must produce the most revo- 
lutionary effect throughout the whole domain of social 
and political philosophy." 2 Yes, it is striking; most 
extremely striking ; so remarkably striking, indeed, 
that one would have expected the author to reconsider 
the question, whether it is necessarily true, if not to 
raise the question, whether it is even possibly true. 
Comte himself, phenomenalist to the backbone, while 
insisting on the connection of sociology with the lower 
science of biology, insisted also on its separate prov- 
ince and independent laws. Now it appears that 

1 P. 203, towards end of Chap. VII. The same thing is to be noted 
in Mr. Platt-Ball's little book against use-inheritance (see Preface, 
p. vii). 

2 Mr. Kidd differs from Mr. Sutherland — (1) in appealing to the 
working of struggle rather than that of elimination among mankind. 
Neither really succeeds in appealing to the struggle, or to the elimina- 
tion, implied in true natural selection; (2) Mr. Kidd allows reason to 
do something — it makes mischief! 



260 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

sociology — like one of the colonies of France — is to 
be merged outright in the mother empire. Every- 
thing is to be biological. Human wisdom, for the 
most part, is to be an incidental deduction from the 
laws of life, as manifested in four-footed beasts and 
fowls and creeping things of the earth. Is it really 
the case that the progress of science since Comte 
makes this conclusion inevitable ? Or is it rather a 
retrogression in the higher culture — a relapse from 
the not too lofty philosophical sympathies of Comte 
— which gives us the proposed biological tyranny ? 
It is an excellent thing, that each man should be an 
enthusiast for his own speciality ; assuredly it is an 
excellent and healthy thing ; but there are limits ! 

The doctrine of inevitable retrogression when prog- 
ress ceases — which we noted in the previous chap- 
ter as Mr. Kidd's second great debt to Weismann — 
has important consequences for sociology. It sweeps 
away socialistic dreams, as well as Spencer's doctrine 
of a stationary state. The second will probably find 
few mourners to shed a tear over it, though it may be 
difficult to give up the purely economic conception of 
a stationary state. What will happen when the world 
is absolutely too full, and population must cease to 
grow ? That is one of the unrevealed mysteries of 
Mr. Kidd's credo. Will he tell us the world is not 
going to last so long ? Will he appeal to a struggle 
for eminence as doing the work of the old struggle 
for life ? In the latter case much of his book would 
need reconsidering. As to socialism, he points out 
with much force that arguments which show it to be 
unscientific may yet fail to dislodge it from the minds 
of men. Sociological science warns the socialists, 



CHAP, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 26 1 

" You will retrograde, 1 and therefore your posterity 
will soon be extinguished." Suppose the socialist to 
reply, " What on earth do I care about posterity ? I 
mean to have an easy time of it myself ! " Then cer- 
tainly your remonstrance has missed fire. 

Another consequence of some importance for socio- 
logical science attaches to this second great loan of 
Mr. Kidd's from Weismann. The old Comtist and 
post-Comtist division into statics and dynamics — con- 
ditions of order 2 and conditions of progress — falls 
to the ground. Mr. Kidd discusses the " conditions 
of progress," and these only. The formula seems 
to be, " Take care of progress and stability will take 
care of itself ; " a formula which follows directly 
from Weismann's dilemma — advance or downright 
retrogression — and yet once more so startling a 
position that once more it seems Mr. Kidd ought 
to have been arrested, as by a large type note of 
interrogation or by a danger signal, and ought to 
have inquired whether something had not been 
ignored when biology was transferred wholesale to 

1 There are two points here: (1) you will retrograde, because 
natural selection will cease; (2) natural selection will extinguish you, 
because you have retrograded. The second will only hold true if social- 
ism and stationariness are partial. Like the eight hours' movement, or 
like bimetallism, socialism (etc.) must seek to come in by international 
arrangement if it is not to be speedily swamped by competition from 
hardier races, within which natural selection is still going on. But, if 
it were an international possibility, the whole world might jog quietly 
down hill (see p. 315). — That is the theory. Facts do not seem as 
yet fully to bear it out. France is still a great power, though perhaps 
in a perilous way (Feb. 1899). And at least France is being swamped 
by the more prolific races. 

2 Comte's Statics, however, as he states them, are rather abstract con- 
ditions of social well-being than conditions of social order. 



262 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

the life and history of man. The young lions of the 
Radical party will welcome Mr. Kidd's formula with 
delight ; but one would rather hear what the old lions 
have to say to it. 

Yet another consequence may be noted ; evolution, 
with Weismann and Mr. Kidd, is almost though not 
altogether equivalent to progress. It is progress 
wherever it is not downright retrogression. Stagna- 
tion is impossible, panmixia and retrogression are 
rare. No doubt panmixia will yield continuous evo- 
lutionary change while it lasts ; but panmixia is 
essentially a limited phenomenon ; it is an exception 
to the general rule. It may prevail in solitary islands, 
literal or metaphorical ; but the great tides and con- 
tinents of life are peopled by struggling, suffering, 
progressive creatures. On a broad view, evolution 
means progress. 

Before leaving this assumption, it may be well to 
ask how much depends upon it ? Go on, or you will 
go back ; acquiesce in struggle, if you don't wish to 
retrograde ; that is a very urgent appeal — an over- 
whelming appeal, one might call it. Yet in many 
respects the same result might be reached by the 
narrower and less urgent, yet tolerably effective 
appeal, acquiesce in struggle if you wish to progress 
and to avoid stagnation. Few of us would be con- 
tent with a " stationary state " from the present hour 
and onwards. The narrower appeal would hold us. 
The same practical results would be reached, with a 
less precarious and less vulnerable array of assump- 
tions. Socialism would still be condemned as arrest- 
ing the further progress of the species. Evolution 
and progress might still be regarded as equivalents — 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 263 

perhaps more so than ever ; but we could reopen the 
book of Social Statics, and admit (for those who de- 
sired it, or who felt bound to anticipate it) visions of 
an ultimate stationary state. 

We pass now to Mr. Kidd's first basis, assumed 
from Weismann, the doctrine that all progress implies 
struggle and natural selection. This doctrine yields 
the first or almost the first abstract formula for social 
dynamics. Comte and others gave us historical 
sketches and sequences, not general principles or 
causes of progress. 1 

What then are the conditions of human progress 
as formulated by Mr. Kidd ? Primarily they are 
physiological. Let men fight the battle of life ; they 
will advance. Easy circumstances, enjoyed in an 
easy spirit, imply arrest, and perhaps arrest implies 
retrogression. But the wholesome biological ten- 
dency to struggle, and struggle on, is interfered with 
by man's gift of reason. The instincts of race keep 
the beasts in the path of progress, e.g. by struggling 
in the interests of their offspring. But many human 
beings — e.g. the school of Mrs. Mona Caird — resent 
these struggles as an impertinence and an absurdity. 
So far, Mr. Kidd agrees with them. It is irrational 
to acquiesce ! Reason makes us conscious of self ; 
selfishness therefore and selfishness alone is rational 
behaviour. But rational behaviour, in this sense of 
the word, leads straight to retrogression. Now, 
natural selection would have its slow remedy for this. 
If the human race had entered the cul-de-sac of 
selfishness, natural selection would calmly have 

1 If Comte had formulated these, they might have found their way 
into his Statics rather than his Dynamics. 



264 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD fcART IV 

waited till a rational race endowed with higher ten- 
dencies " happened " to be evolved ; whereupon 
humanity would quickly have been extinguished in 
competition with the new race. But fortunately for 
the prospects of mankind, such an evolution has 
already " happened." Mankind is a race fitted to 
survive. Or rather — Mr. Kidd does not write on 
this point like an ultra-Darwinian, giving the largest 
possible play to chance, but like one who has a belief 
in the purposef ulness of organic life — the biological 
laws of human society supply a counterpoise to the 
dangers introduced by reason. We have reason to 
make us selfish ; but we have religion to make and 
keep us altruistic, in despite of our reason. All 
religions are preter-rational and altruistic, Christianity 
the most of all. So we have been swayed, and have 
struggled, and have progressed. We have struggled 
in war. We have struggled by mere contact, when 
lower races have melted away at the presence of 
civilised man. We are struggling to some purpose 
in the scramble for Africa. And, beyond a doubt, 
we of the white races shall succeed in a further 
struggle to control the Yellow Terror for the greater 
good of humanity. Mr. Charles Pearson's formid- 
able table, proving the rapid increase of blacks in the 
United States, is met by another set of tables, prov- 
ing that the increase is not so rapid after all. Such 
effect has Christianity had in making us altruistic 
that we have voluntarily widened the sphere of rights 
within each nation. Yet we are not drifting into 
socialism. Quite otherwise ; what the Zeitgeist 
really means is to secure genuine equality of oppor- 
tunity — intensified struggle between citizen and 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 265 

citizen — accelerated progress ! The yielding of 
Militarism to Industrialism, and the allied change 
"from status to contract," are earlier stages in the 
same great development by which competition grows 
ever more and more intense. 

Here then we have Comte's three appeals brought 
into odd harmony with an apology for supernatural 
or at least for " ultra-rational " religion. This is to 
be heartily welcomed as an advance in the right 
direction ; and the criticisms passed by Mr. Kidd, on 
the contemptuous treatment of the origin of religion 
by Mr. Spencer and his underlings, are well deserved 
and well established. A saner view of history cer- 
tainly does commend the opinion, so powerfully 
advocated by Seeley, that religion is the great ani- 
mating force in states and societies, the master- 
builder of historic greatness. Nor can it be denied 
that there was need of reaction from a one-sided 
intellectualism, which had prevailed even in quarters 
where we find but little faith in reason. 1 

Granting all this, and granting it gladly, one must 
go on to express grave distrust of the process by 
which Mr. Kidd reaches his conclusion ; of the terms 
in which he formulates it; and of the affirmations 
with which it is connected. 

First, even if we accepted the claim that biology 
was to be the final judge, we must regard Mr. Kidd's 
Weismannism as a very insecure foundation. We 
have already noted in some detail how the denial of 
use-inheritance had been qualified and weakened and 
transformed by its author even before Mr. Kidd 
applied to Weismannism for a social gospel. And 

1 E.g. Mill and Buckle. See below, in the closing paragraphs. 



266 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

we have seen that the doctrine of necessary regress 
in the absence of struggle and consequent advance is 
a precarious deduction from Weismann's own prem- 
ises, and is scarcely necessary to Mr. Kidd's socio- 
logical system. 

Hitherto, however, we have considered only one 
form of Mr. Kidd's dependence on biology. 1 So far, 
we have spoken of his doctrine concerning men qua 
physical organisms, exposed to the same conditions 
as other living creatures. A different use of language 
by Mr. Kidd must now be considered. His further 
doctrines regarding reason and religion are brought 
into connection with biology by means of the familiar 
phrase, the social organism. True, Mr. Kidd thinks 
that other writers who have used this phrase have led 
us very little, if at all, farther on. Still, it points us 
in the right direction, and the new guide is confident 
of securing better results. Not man the individual, 
but society as such, is now viewed as illustrating bio- 
logical law. There are conditions of vitality or of 
progress — progress is a manifest fact; there are 
difficulties revealed by observation or by conscious- 
ness ; and there are safeguards or remedies discov- 
ered by analysis. This does not sound very like 
Darwinism, still less like Weismannism, though it is 
brought forward as based on the latter. The truth 
is, the basis here is nothing ; " social organism " is 
only a phrase ; the analysis here is everything. All 
depends upon the truth or erroneousness, the worth- 

1 Professor Lloyd Morgan shows very tellingly that Mr. Kidd is not 
warranted by any facts he adduces in contrasting man's intellectual 
and his moral evolution {Habit and Instinct, p. 345). Yet another 
part of the case therefore breaks down. 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 267 

lessness or the value, of Mr. Kidd's doctrines of 
religion and reason. In dealing with these points, he 
must speak as a philosopher. His biological know- 
ledge does nothing here to guard him against error. 

The doctrine of reason is similar to what we find in 
Mr. A. J. Balfour's Foundations of Belief. Each 
writer, in a footnote, 1 repudiates any higher or deeper 
doctrine of reason than that which regards it as a 
calculating machine or process of inference. This 
implies that reason is passive in knowledge, and plays 
no part in determining the motives of human con- 
duct. The effect of the latter belief, when held by 
intuitionalists, is that they postulate a moral faculty 
of conscience alongside of reason and independent of 
it. In Darwin the effect is this, that moral motives 
are interpreted by the animal impulses of gregarious 
creatures, impulses which are held to be extended in 
range, but not altered in quality, by the advent of 
reason. And in Drummond the effect is that he 
looks for one set of impulses which even in animals 
may be labelled good and right, in contrast to mere 
self-seeking. Only by such a discovery is Drummond 
able to save morality. 

In assuming that biological law may be applied en 
masse to human conditions, Mr. Kidd seems to reaf- 
firm the doctrine that reason has no material influence 
upon motive. Yet it turns out otherwise. He does 
believe that the animal nature of man is affected by 
reason, viz. for the worse ! Conscious of what he is 
doing, man objects to sacrifice himself to his family 

1 Social Evohttion, p. 73, 2nd edition. Foundations of Belief 
P- 195- 



268 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

or his tribe ; instinct might have led the ape to make 
the sacrifice automatically. Reason thus tends to 
make man purely selfish ; and sometimes the ten- 
dency has its full effect. After all selfishness is the 
only reasonable behaviour. If indeed reason can be 
controlled, it promises of great social advance through 
the superior cleverness which it imparts ; but in itself 
it is a purely anarchical force. De Maistre or New- 
man could not have spoken more severely of it. 

Let us recall here what we have learned from other 
evolutionists regarding the advent of reason. It has 
arrested the evolution of the body (Drummond, etc.). 
It has wrapped mankind round in a mantle of law, 
custom, and institution, capable of intellectual not 
physical inheritance {e.g. Mr. L. Stephen). It has 
largely substituted imitation or conversion for rivalry 
to the death (Bagehot). And now Mr. Kidd tells us 
that reason abruptly closes — so far as its influence 
extends — the process of upward social evolution. 
Does not all this support the conclusion that reason 
is something quite different from a mere colourless 
medium or calculating machine ? One fully agrees 
with Mr. Kidd that reason checks the automatic work- 
ing of instinct. Where reason appears, systematic 
selfishness and sin become possible as they never 
were before. But unselfishness too becomes possible 
as it never was before ; it has a new significance. 
Reason has broken up the unity of the life of sense. 
Does it do nothing except break it up ? At the low- 
est, is reason not shrewd enough to perceive the un- 
happiness of a selfish life, the greater gain to oneself 
of a life animated by unselfish and far-reaching 
interests ? 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 269 

Something must be added here regarding the use 
of the word reason by Mr. Kidd and Mr. Balfour. 
Reason is narrowed by them to reasoning, and even 
{pace Mr. Balfour) to rationalism. Mr. Balfour's 
footnote seems to be dealing Coleridge a sly hit when 
it repudiates acquaintance with the Logos. Now no 
doubt Coleridge had a provoking habit of exclaiming 
" Logos " as if it were a talisman of magic power. 
We have seen something similar in our own day on 
the part of that very able and powerful and now ven- 
erable Hegelian writer, Dr. Hutchison Stirling. In 
his case, " the Notion " was the talismanic word. 
Mr. Kidd again goes straight to Kant, 1 by whom, of 
course, Coleridge was influenced. But Kant is very 
obscure. Some provocation had then been offered 
the plain Briton. And the way in which the doc- 
trine of Reason or Logos shaped itself with Kant or 
with Coleridge — in many points alike; in many 
points, also, not alike — was open to further criticism. 
Every doctrine of " faculties " is, to a large extent, 
artificial. Reason and Understanding shade into each 
other, however we may choose to contrast them. 

But, just on that account, the plain Englishman 
will find it hard to keep clear of the deeper and more 
mystic features of reason. He wants to be a practi- 
tioner in the simpler branch of the art ; well ! the 
arts are not two but one. His own words will prove 
disobedient to him. Words are something more than 
the clothes of thought : they are its incarnation. 
We inherit words ; we use them in our service, enno- 

1 Without reporting him very accurately. Grave objection might be 
taken to the formulation of each of the three great Kantian positions 
given by Mr. Kidd, 



270 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

bling them or, more frequently, debasing them ; they 
lived before us, and they will long outlive our very 
memory. We are the fleeting shadows ; they are 
the substances. Words are like homing pigeons ; 
they will carry our messages, if we manage them 
wisely ; but with an instinct surer than our choice — 
with an instinct not to be overborne by our caprice 
— they will go there, to that one point where each is 
at rest. If we take up the great task of the imper- 
sonal reason of mankind, it is in vain that we express 
our determination to keep clear of the transcendental 
or of the logos ! It is in us and we are in it ; in it, 
or in Him, we live and move and have our being, un- 
less Mr. Balfour carries us off in his alluring company 
upon one of his favourite excursions to " a standpoint 
outside of reason." Inmates of a madhouse are as 
nearly as possible emancipated from the logos ; to all 
others the logos is " closer than breathing." 

Mr. Kidd's doctrine of religion is largely deter- 
mined by his doctrine of reason. Reason, though 
useful (like fire) as a servant, is, like fire, a thing an- 
archical and destructive. Religion, the source of 
order, is, by the very nature of the case, extra- 
rational. Religion makes it man's interest or man's 
impulse to do things which are not personally for 
his profit, and which reason therefore discourages. 

At first blush, one is tempted to connect Mr. Kidd's 
doctrine of religion with the familiar doctrine of 
future rewards and punishments. These are repre- 
sented as supernatural motives for doing good. They 
are not, however, extra-rational; they make it worth 
one's while to be moral. Righteousness is strictly 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 27 1 

a rational and self-interested policy, if this be the 
truth. This is not therefore Mr. Kidd's meaning ; 
and the doctrine in itself is unsatisfactory. Selfish- 
ness produced to infinity remains selfishness still ; it 
does not turn into righteousness or unselfishness. 
Other worldliness is only a more morbid growth from 
the same root as worldliness. If it is moral — if it is 
one's duty — to preach the doctrine of future judg- 
ment, that is only because selfish fears and selfish 
hopes, once awakened, may be transformed, without 
a visible break, into something nobler than them- 
selves. They are moral protoplasm (in the true and 
Aristotelian sense). They are the germ, though only 
the germ, of goodness. 

When once, however, we have shut out this in- 
terpretation of Mr. Kidd's doctrine of religion, it is 
very hard indeed to say what the doctrine means. 
Religion works powerfully, but irrationally ; that is 
all we are told. It sounds as if religion were a sort 
of white magic or hypnotic influence. It sounds like 
a revival of opinions held by wise men under the 
Roman Empire, according to Gibbon, when all re- 
ligions "were considered by the people as equally 
true, by the philosopher as equally false, and by the 
magistrate as equally useful." Religion serves the 
public weal ; religion augments altruism ; the Chris- 
tian religion in particular attains its ends by a sweeping 
dogma of human equality. But how Christianity or 
any other religion captures the wills of human beings, 
of that we have no explanation. And when we find 
that Mr. Kidd, in view of the scramble for Africa, 
and of the taking of the black races under white tute- 
lage, thinks that Christianity must consent to modify 



272 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

its equalitarian dogma, a dogma that has been so 
operative and so useful in the past, one surmises that 
a high appreciation of the past usefulness of the 
Christian religion is quite compatible with a very cool 
and detached consideration of its claim to present 
authority. Indeed, can any man believe that which 
by definition is non-rational ? And — to take another 
point — is not Mr. Kidd's proposed tampering with 
the rigour of Christianity a most unholy piece of 
rationalism ? Alas ! The countrymen of Cecil 
Rhodes seem in small danger of being irrationally 
altruistic, or democratic, or humanitarian in their 
treatment of the black man ! And if the premises 
are true, is not Mr. Kidd's personal counsel most sub- 
versive and pernicious ? If religion blindly obeyed 
in the past has made us what we now are, must we 
not still obey religion with what is called blind 
fidelity ? If irreligion has brought its penalties 
hitherto, will not irreligious acts incur the same 
doom hereafter ? And irreligious theory no less ! 

Biologically, Mr. Kidd seems to have left one pos- 
sibility unconsidered. Congenital variations may be 
due to the environment (by use-inheritance or by dif- 
ferences of nutrition), or they may be due to amphi- 
mixis ; or thirdly, they may be due to an inner ten- 
dency to vary. Mr. Kidd, in his enthusiastic adhe- 
rence to Weismann, has left the last possibility out of 
consideration ; yet Romanes points out that Darwin 
was inclined to look in that direction. Now, if there 
is a tendency to variation in living species, if variation 
is not simply forced on them by environment, there 
is no reason for assuming that variation will be purely 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 273 

casual or non-telic. The embryo is a wise little archi- 
tect, who builds up a new life out of a speck of proto- 
plasm by the help of nutritive materials. He makes 
no mistakes ; he gives us new organisms each after its 
kind, each perfect in every part, unless where mere 
force damages his work. If this wise little architect 
varies his plan slightly, it is far from being obvious 
that he varies at random. If he knows so much as 
he plainly does know, should we not give him credit 
for knowing a little more ? If he knows enough to 
keep him faithful to the plan of the specific type, 
ought we not to believe that, when he introduces 
variations, he knows what he is doing, that he makes 
improvements, not random shots ? He is not a piece 
of lifeless mechanism. He is a standing miracle — a 
" natural supernatural." We are confidently told that 
the abandonment of belief in preformation and adop- 
tion of the theory of epigenesis was a heavy blow to 
teleological and theistic doctrines. I confess I should 
have thought the opposite. • Is there not more of the 
likeness of miracle in the emergence of an organism, 
true to its own type, from a speck of living jelly, than 
in the growth of a detailed miniature by mere accre- 
tion in bulk ? Be that as it may, there is at any rate 
no literal preformation, and there is the fulfilment of 
purpose. Then, if variation occurs spontaneously — 
from the resident forces of life itself — can variation 
be a thing of random direction ? 

Now random variations may become purposeful if 
they are well weeded by natural selection. But varia- 
tions which are purposeful from their very beginning — 
like those due to use-inheritance, if such are really 
transmitted — do not need to be sifted by the elaborate 



274 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

and tedious process of natural selection. It is per- 
fectly conceivable that purposeful variations 1 occur 
spontaneously in each species, and are a direct source 
of progress. 

When we leave biology for sociology and the 
sphere of reason, the possibility spoken of becomes a 
certainty. Reason tends to continuous advance ; 
and its achievements are inherited by means of 
human culture, with its special agency, human or 
rational speech, passing into higher and more power- 
ful developments in the form of writing and again of 
printing. This is recognised in Mr. Leslie Stephen's 
view of society ; society is an organic tissue, in virtue 
of the communion which exists between its parts, 
through reason and through speech as the embodi- 
ment of reason. The definition of civilisation found 
in Professor Ritchie's Darwinism and Politics, viz. 
" the sum of those contrivances which enable human 
beings to advance independently of [biological] 
heredity," points us in the right direction. Mr. Kidd 
has missed the obvious truth because he is too intent 
on biology, and too hurried in his glance at human 
society and human reason. " Biologists " may prove 
if they can " the non-transmission to offspring of 
qualities acquired during the lifetime of the parent." 
If biologists make out their case, they prove that 
such qualities are not transmitted biologically or 
organically. They cannot possibly show that " the 
effects of use and education " are not " transmitted by 
inheritance." Every time a child goes to school, he 
is entering upon such an inheritance. True, he may 

1 Not that we can claim Darwin's authority for this belief. 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 275 

inherit little "at birth." What of that? Human 
progress cannot conceivably be regulated by "the 
accumulation of congenital variations above the aver- 
age " and by nothing else. That would imply that 
the world could gain nothing from an intelligent 
sociologist unless he happened to leave a son who 
was slightly more effective, socially, than himself. 
The truth is that genius is rarely or never reproduced 
in offspring, while yet progress is secured by the 
human, the rational methods. " The sons " of the 
wise, as Old Testament language reminds us, are 
other than his family after the flesh. Even in dying, 
" he shall see his seed." Shakespeare is Shake- 
speare, not to one generation merely, but to every 
age. Newton survives in the senior wranglers of to- 
day, who could expose so many of his errors, and tell 
him so many things he never dreamed of. If Mr. 
Kidd's views are solid, he has contributed directly to 
human evolution by his very stimulating book; a 
contribution quite independent of " accumulation of 
congenital variations" ; while if Mr. Kidd is wrong, 
one may hope to make some small but direct contri- 
bution to human welfare by exposing his fallacies. 
Really it is almost ludicrous to spend so much time 
in beating in an open door ! Yet the conclusion 
pointed to is one of great scope and importance, if 
we consider it thoughtfully. Far from being a mere 
accidental accretion upon the evolutionary process, 
reason has transformed everything. Reason is not 
formal but constitutive. Reason is not simply a cal- 
culating machine, but a principle, whose workings 
are seen both in nature and in man, both in know- 
ledge and in conduct. It is not selfish but moral 



276 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

behaviour that deserves, and alone deserves, to be 
called rational. 

And, if our view of reason changes, our view of 
religion must change with it. Religion is not the 
contradiction but the fulfilment of reason. For rea- 
son is immanent in all things. Every one of Mr. A. 
J. Balfour's parallel pigeon-holes is a simple depart- 
ment or manifestation of reason. " Ethics " and 
" ^Esthetic " are as rational as abstract scientific 
knowledge; how could they arise save in a rational 
consciousness ? And assuredly religion also must be 
a superstructure reared on the foundations of reason. 
But it is not true, as the intellectualists hold, that 
morals or aesthetics add nothing to that which is pre- 
sented to us in knowledge. It is not true, as Hegel- 
ianism seems to imply, that goodness and beauty are 
mere allotropic forms of rational system, or that logic 
furnishes the master key to their meaning. Our 
knowledge is real knowledge, but has its limits ; and 
the meeting-point of these various stems lies under- 
ground, well out of sight. To God, their connection 
may be self-evident, their interdependence manifest ; 
to man, these great truths must continue largely 
matter of faith. 

And therefore we do not speak idly when we say 
that reason finds its fulfilment not strictly in itself, 
but above and beyond itself, in religion. Men do 
not need religion to make it their interest to be good. 
That is, most deeply, our human interest. Yet man 
is in bondage. " The good that we approve we per- 
form not; the evil that we allow not, that we do." 
By a " pleasureless yielding " to " petty solicitations 
of circumstance," we destroy ourselves. Deliverance 



chap, xix HYPER-DARWINISM IN SOCIOLOGY 277 

comes from above. " What the law could not do, in 
that it was weak through the flesh," has yet been 
done, and done in a Diviner way. Here is the true 
apologetic vindication of religion. Religion is no 
superfluity, though reason itself — so far as its influ- 
ence goes — inclines us towards what is good. Re- 
ligion is the breath of life, the touch of God, making 
that a reality, strong and victorious, which apart from 
it would be nothing but a faint aspiration or a bitter 
and hopeless regret. 



CHAPTER XX 

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 

Self-contradictions — Comte is arbitrary — Biology has been reinforced 
by evolutionary theories, yielding different forms of sociological doc- 
trine — i. Analogy, without struggle; Stephen — 2. Continuity, 
without struggle ; Spencer, Alexander (partly) — 3. Analogy of 
Darwinism; Bagehot, Alexander, Ritchie (?) — 4. Continuity of nat- 
ural selection; Sutherland, Drummond (?), Kidd — None of these 
wholly succeed ; old authorities will return ! — Or idealism, which is 
compatible with the old authorities, may give us a more satisfying 
doctrine of evolution — What have we been taught? — (1) A social 
organism exists — Idealism reinforces this lesson — (2) Struggle has 
been useful; will it not be? as discussion? as competition? — In 
light of idealism this seems possible — Of fact, probable — Must not 
exaggerate its place; it is subordinate in life of reason — [Mallock] 
— Finally, does progressiveness of evolution make it a guide to con- 
duct ? — Difficulties in biology ; environment constant ? — Some forms 
have stopped ! — Some never started ! — Differentiation plainer here 
than progress — Reason makes for progress in history — Is it all- 
sufficient? (Mill, Buckle) — Ancient civilisation failed — Morality 
and Christianity must safeguard modern civilisation 

At the close of our wanderings, we propose to hold 
a stock-taking of the wisdom which we have picked 
up by the way. In other words, we shall run rapidly 
over the suggestions that have been brought before 
us, and try to estimate their value. We must note 
once again in how many voices and in how contra- 
dictory a fashion our teachers speak. Scientific soci- 
ology is still a hope rather than a fact ; the " ethics 

278 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 279 

of evolution " may mean any one of half-a-dozen or 
half-a-hundred things. The wisdom proffered to us 
is hydra-headed, it is million-tongued. But we must 
also try to decide, in general terms, what positive 
contribution to human guidance we may reasonably 
expect from "biological" inquiry. And we must 
look more closely at the definitions of evolution, 
especially at the question whether evolution is or is 
not identical in meaning with progress. 

In Comte, the appeal to biology occupied a limited, 
almost a subordinate, position. Biology was the 
science next below sociology ; it furnished the soci- 
ologist with suggestions ; but decisive guidance was 
found in the wise man's inspection of human phenom- 
ena, or in his study of past history. We have seen, 
however, on how many distinct principles, and with 
how large an infusion of arbitrariness, Comte read off 
these lessons. In our opinion, such guidance as 
Comte yields was due to the working in him of the 
rational and moral nature of man. So far as biology 
in particular was of service, it gave him only 
parables. 

Biology leaped into much greater prominence when 
the doctrine of organic evolution was propounded, 
and when evolution was further generalised (however 
vaguely) as a cosmic process. We distinguish two 
phases in this appeal — non-Darwinian evolution and 
Darwinian ; and two forms of each, according as 
evolution is appealed to for analogies bearing on the 
social and ethical life of man, or according as an 
effort is made to merge that social and ethical life in 
a continuous evolution upon naturalistic lines. 



280 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part IV 

First, we have evolution without the assertion of 
struggle applied to human affairs by way of analogy. 
This is chiefly exemplified in Mr. Stephen's doctrine 
of " social tissue," by which he serves himself heir to 
Comte. The doctrine, however, is without authority. 
It remains a hypothesis. We may, if we will, regard 
morals as the laws of social welfare ; Mr. Stephen 
would add, versus individual welfare. No proof is 
given that we mast do so. 

Again,. part of Professor Alexander's theory falls 
under this head, viz. the definition of goodness as 
equilibrium. Here a certain amount of proof is 
offered us, viz. indirectly, in the form of hostile 
criticism of rival naturalistic theories ; along with 
which we have Mr. Alexander's assurance that the 
measure of truth contained in idealistic ethics is in- 
corporated in his own formula. We see no possible 
reason to forbid the assertion that goodness is an 
equilibrium, — it is in the further working out of his 
views that Mr. Alexander seems to compromise the 
interests of morality. But we remain unconvinced 
that "equilibrium" is either the best or the only defi- 
nition of moral excellence. 

Secondly, we have evolution — still without vital 
incorporation of the conception of struggle — in Mr. 
Herbert Spencer, but now applied not simply by way 
of " analogy " to the " social organism," but also — 
and emphatically — to the whole cosmic process, 1 
society included. At least, that is the effort of Mr. 
Spencer's philosophy. In its working out, as we 

1 If Spencer is biological at all, it is in conceiving the universe itself 
as an organism. But that organism, by the definition, has no environ- 
ment ! 



chap. XX SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 28 1 

noted, it falls short of its aim, giving us rather a 
sequence of distinct evolutions in different regions. 
And for the guidance of conduct Mr. Spencer does 
not keep steadily to the suggestions furnished by 
cosmic evolution, but varies his standpoints, and sets 
before us no fewer than three ideals. 

Thirdly, we have the Darwinian doctrine of 
struggle ; and we take it for the moment as applied 
by way of analogy to human relations. Now this 
Darwinian doctrine is immensely important. True, 
or false, or half true — and we must not suppose that 
the truth of evolution, even of organic evolution, 
stands or falls with Darwinism — Darwinism still 
remains as when first promulgated, the one dominant 
theory. It "holds the field." While the factors of 
Spencer's assumed cosmic evolution are shadowy and 
vague, the factors of natural selection are — or seem 
to most minds — plain and undeniable. They may 
carry us far, or they may carry us only a short dis- 
tance ; but they are vera causes. 

Darwinism is applied by Bagehot to nations and to 
political life generally ; by Professor Alexander to the 
conflict of ethical ideals. In neither case does the as- 
sumed evolution follow the lines of true Darwinism. 
Apart from war, Bagehot recognises imitation (cf. 
Professor Baldwin) and free discussion as the great 
factors in progress or change. Both of these are 
psychical factors ; they make for evolution directly, 
not indirectly ; they may be expected to move much 
more quickly than natural selection. Professor Alex- 
ander again (as we concluded), so far as he makes 
the conflict of ethical ideals look like a Darwinian 
struggle, does this by distorting his facts. We may 



282 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part IV 

add here that his vision of endlessly successive ideals 
has no authority from Darwinism. In nature, we see 
clearly that the process of organic evolution has its 
definite limits, and comes, now on one line and now 
on another, to a fixed goal. And the assertion that 
the reigning ideal is the true ideal for its time, though 
only for its time, finds no justification in the world 
of nature or in Darwinism. It implies some other 
philosophy ; and the unknown philosophy does not 
attract us. 

Professor Ritchie is hard to group. He tells us 
that Darwinism applies mutatis mutandis to human 
things. " How else ? " With such a saving clause 
one might predicate any attribute of any subject. 
The stuffed horse of Wallenstein at Prague, with 
" only the head, legs, and part of the body renewed," 
is the same horse still, no doubt ; mutatis mutandis. 
So long as Professor Ritchie does not take a general 
view of the changes which he recognises, we do not 
know whether he believes in applying Darwinism by 
analogy to a higher evolutionary region, or in extend- 
ing Darwinism to cover the whole field. Perhaps he 
has never faced that distinction. In any case, his 
opinions are left too vague to be estimated. He 
makes no attempt to find guidance for conduct in 
Darwinism ; unless perhaps from its " not sanction- 
ing " struggle or laissez faire ? 

Fourthly, however, we have the assertion of Dar- 
winism as an all-embracing (organic and super- 
organic) philosophy. This is found in Mr. A. 
Sutherland, and we are not a little indebted to him 
for working it out and showing where it leads.' It 
means the denial of the existence of human reason as 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 283 

a factor in the cosmos, and of history as the embodi- 
ment of human reason. This we might treat as re- 
ducing the position ad absurdum. Against such 
extravagances not metaphysicians only protest, but 
evolutionists, like Darwin, 1 Professor Karl Pearson, 
Professor Lloyd Morgan. They have shown us in 
their capacity as men of science how intelligence, as 
it arises in the animal world, limits, and finally ban- 
ishes, natural selection. We have further seen that, 
while faithful to the conception of progress by elimi- 
nation, Mr. Sutherland does not himself succeed in 
assuming the kind of elimination implied in true 
natural selection, viz. starvation or violent slaughter 
due to struggle. 

Drummond did not definitely challenge natural 
selection. Probably he was a believer, and had no 
intention of excluding its operation from human 
society. He tried to show, mainly in the brute world, 
that it had limitations. The argument as he states it 
seems precarious, inadequate, and, in the light of a 
better philosophy, unnecessary. 

We again find pure Darwinism, or rather pure 
natural selectionism — hyper-Darwinism, a Darwin- 
ism that goes beyond the master — asserted by Mr. 
Kidd following the lines of Weismann. We held his 
physiological basis to be insecure, and his sociological 
inferences illegitimate, even if it were possible to 

1 Darwin's denial of natural selection among the civilised is found 
in Descent of Man, pp. 143, 618, quoted in Mr. K. Pearson's Chances 
of Death, etc., i. pp. 127, 128. This may be set against the anti-ethi- 
cal suggestions of Darwin regarding bee-murder. While he was 
tempted to interpret the higher by the lower in evolution, he was not 
pledged to that error. 



284 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

treat the problems of morality and sociology in an 
appendix to biology. But in point of fact Social 
Evolution turns as much upon the writer's private 
opinions regarding reason and religion as upon its 
view of struggle ; 1 and that view, dissociating 
struggle from elimination, is not Darwin's view. 

On the whole, then, this is what we have seen. 
The one attempt to give authority to biology as a 
guide for human conduct is the doctrine of evolution. 
The only accredited theory of naturalistic evolution 
is natural selection. And it does not, it cannot, 
apply where reason is at work. 

When this is more generally recognised we shall 
see a return of men's minds to the rejected author- 
ities. Religion, conscience, philosophy, even intui- 
tionalism, they will all come back, " trooping all 
together." Probably they will all have contributions 
to make to the social philosophy of the future. Faith 
in free will must also return : the ban of ostracism 
will be cancelled. Denial of freedom is exactly 
parallel to Mr. Sutherland's denial of reason, though 
many idealists have mixed themselves up with the 
one while claiming to be champions of the other. 
But this is the truth : there is a new factor distinguish- 
ing spirit from nature; in knowledge it appears as 
reason, in conduct as will. One is delighted to find 
Professor Karl Pearson helping, though indirectly 
and involuntarily, to vindicate libertarianism. 

1 Professor Baldwin's Social and Ethical Interpretations furnishes a 
valuable criticism upon Mr. Kidd. Some of Mr. Baldwin's own posi- 
tions seem obscure or questionable. But as he decisively subordinates 
the appeal to biology, he does not form part of the proper field of our 
present study. 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 285 

Yet all is not done when we recognise the impor- 
tance of reason and will. We are not at the end 
of social philosophy. We are only at the begin- 
ning of a better start. It was intolerable extrava- 
gance when Mr. Sutherland tried to make away 
with the existence or distinctive character of mind, 
though he only blurted out what many had been 
whispering behind their hands. And yet man has a 
body as well as a mind ; he has not ceased to be an 
animal, because he has become a spirit. He is still 
an organism. Probably old-fashioned ethics and 
libertarian philosophy made matters too easy for 
themselves by ignoring everything except the pres- 
ence of reason and of free well. We must keep both 
sides in view. May we advance a step farther? 
May we say that the two sides are not to be contem- 
plated as two heterogeneous things — soul and body 
linked together like an ox and an ass yoked in the 
same team — but as naturally and necessarily related, 
or perhaps as in some deep sense identical ? This 
is a programme hard to comprehend and hard to 
follow, but it has formed part of the noble endeav- 
ours of idealism. Idealism tells us that " such a 
being as man is, in such a world as the present," 
would not be more spiritual without his body. He is 
spiritual just because he is a human being — human 
body and human soul. Idealism holds that the 
animal functions, recognised in the life of man as 
" hunger and love!' are no more anti-spiritual than 
spiritual, but rather the raw material of spirituality, 
of moral goodness, of character; life being the 
discipline and the ripening of character. It tells us 
that reason is the fulfilment (as well as the transfor- 



286 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

mation) of nature ; that man is the meaning, and there- 
fore the goal, of the cosmic process which is seen in 
this world. What lover of humanity, what believer 
in its Divine goal, would refuse assent to this inter- 
pretation of man's place in the present world ? 

Not soul helps flesh more now than flesh helps soul. 

This is evolutionism, but a very different evolu- 
tionism from that studied in the previous pages. It 
would have been impossible therefore to try to bring 
in " Hegel " as well as " Darwin " in our present 
study. The new social philosophy, if it follows 
these lines, may be found to furnish not very much 
in the way of dogmatic sociology. It may well turn 
out that, on fuller reflection, the a priori scheme of 
" all possible societies " will shrink into very small 
compass, that the general programme formulated by 
wise teachers will be notably vague. That will not 
matter greatly. The wise social philosopher will 
not claim that the one fount of wisdom for men or 
societies is the fountain which he has enclosed. 
Ethics proper will be among his data. He will 
renounce as fraudulent and absurd the attempt to 
deduce ethics from schemes of physical or even of 
biological evolution. 

Have we then learned nothing, it may be asked, 
from the naturalistic schemes passed in review ? 

They have contradicted each other (and them- 
selves) so freely that it seems impossible to maintain 
they have accomplished much. Nevertheless, we 
may notice their two chief suggestions. 

First, it has been suggested that society is an 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 287 

organism ; and Mr. Spencer, with difficulties to face 
from the materialistic cast of his own philosophy (in 
its spirit, if not in its letter), suggests that the uni- 
verse is an organism. These views will receive 
authoritative support if we accept the idealist evolu- 
tionism. It will no longer be a mere assertion, it 
will be part of a great and subtle system of thought, 
if we now assert that society is an organism ; that 
its interests are paramount to those of the individ- 
ual ; that in its good the individual finds his own. 
Even the bold description of the universe as an 
organism will be justified. The universe will be 
revealed on deeper and fuller study as a system, not 
a chance aggregation of disconnected parts, but a 
cosmos. Chaos and chance will be banished to the 
region of bad dreams. Reality will be viewed as the 
creation and the image of thought. The relation 
between man and nature will also be conceived as 
necessary or organic. Everywhere will be traced 
such a priority of the whole to the parts as organisms 
display to us. For the true and beau-ideal organism 
is that which is more than an organism, self-conscious 
reason. 

Secondly, we cannot fail to observe a suggestion 
of a different kind pressed upon us by the study 
of nature, the suggestion of the importance, nay 
more, of the indispensableness of struggle. Of 
course, it is possible, or even probable, that the 
doctrine of natural selection is not the whole truth, 
even in the region of biology. Therefore it may 
be the case that the evolutionary study of nature, 
as conducted by our scientific leaders, hands on to 
sociology a stronger recommendation in favour of 



288 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

struggle than facts really warrant. Further, we 
have agreed decidedly to repel the suggestion that 
natural selection strictly so-called has an appreci- 
able effect in civilised society, or can account for ad- 
vances in human morality. Still, unless we utterly 
reject natural selection — perhaps one might even 
say, unless we close our eyes to manifest facts — 
we must admit that struggle exists in nature. And 
it will need clear proof if we are to believe that 
the same necessity does not hold in human life. 

Bagehot and Professor Alexander have mainly 
dwelt on the importance of free discussion. That 
is a kind of competition. It is very different, of 
course, from natural selection. It implies reason 
and speech and the possible wide diffusion of suc- 
cessful opinions, — a whole world of causes making 
for rapid advance in contrast to the heart-breaking 
tardiness of natural selection. Still, it is a form 
of struggle. And while defeat here points towards 
conversion rather than towards extinction, it would 
be absurd to say that defeat in argument is always 
painless. It is painful ! And it does not always 
make for progress. We have ceased to believe as 
confidently as the men of last generation in the 
immediate victory of truth. 1 Yet if free discussion 
is maintained it will bring us in time to the ulti- 
mate victory of truth ; we still believe that. And 
we have learned too that the refusal to give un- 
bounded sway to argument is not wholly bad. It 
is not pure perversity. It is partly due to the 

1 There are interesting remarks on the evolution of beliefs in Dr. 
F. B. Jevons's Introduction to the History of Religion at the beginning 
of chap. xxvi. 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 289 

working of deep but only half-articulate convic- 
tions and instincts. Men cannot answer the glib 
logician, but they are sure there is something upon 
their side of the case to which he has failed to do 
justice. Socially and morally it would be no ad- 
vance if mankind laid aside their conservative mis- 
givings, and sought to set up an age of reason, 
with all the schoolboy enthusiasm of the Jacobins. 
Convictions which are more slowly reached are 
more deeply grounded. 

Mr. Kidd lays stress upon the sort of competition 
noted in political economy, personal competition be- 
tween man and man. Unquestionably this has been 
a vast historical influence. It had its limits. Cus- 
tom, as economists since J. S. Mill have taught, very 
widely forestalled competition in the history of 
human trade. But the two factors are not neces- 
sarily inconsistent. They may co-operate, as when 
custom fixes the amount of a fee, while competition 
settles who shall do most business and carry off 
most fees. In that way, or in some fuller way, 
competition is likely to assert itself irresistibly as 
the pressure intensifies. Struggle ensures the maxi- 
mum product. 

But we have not done with custom when we 
have recognised the increasing power of competi- 
tion. In other ways social custom has conditioned 
the working of competition, notably in the class 
standard of co?nfort. Men have never competed en 
masse for the necessaries of life, or for the chance 
of piling up a fortune by miserliness. Both per- 
sonal inclination and social pressure have con- 
strained those who rise in the world to modify 



290 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

their scale of expenses. Therefore the foolish pros- 
perous man will tell the artizan that though richer 
he is no better off — not a bit — always on the 
wrong side of the account ; and what to do with 
the boys — ! A distribution of society into separate 
compartments tends thus to intensify struggle and 
to increase the total output. 

The very fact that biology offers social science this 
second suggestion, in favour of struggle, shows in a 
crucial instance the unreliableness and self-contradic- 
toriness of the biological lawgiving. If society is an 
organism, man ought to live for the general good. If 
struggle for existence is the true law of moral and 
social advance, then it is our duty to fight "for 
our own hands " with all our might. Which view is 
authoritative ? Both cannot be ; yet both are " the 
teaching of biology." 

It may seem that any attempt to make room for 
struggle is equally inconsistent with that higher 
evolutionism based on reason, to which we have 
pointed. If reason promulgates a doctrine of the 
social organism, must not reason too feel nonplussed 
by the assertion that nature teaches the necessity of 
struggle ? Yet, at the least, the philosopher's study 
of reason has prepared him to hear of an intenser 
struggle where conscious life prevails. He sees how 
self-consciousness draws a more definite line round 
the individual, making each organism a universe in 
itself, a microcosm, as no irrational creature is or 
could be. He perceives that the requirement some- 
times addressed to man is foolishness — that he should 
behave as a mere part in a larger social organism. It 
is idle to talk of such things. Self-consciousness puts 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 29 1 

an end to acquiescence in the mere suppression of the 
individual. But, if the first and lowest work of reason 
is to break up the unity of sense, that unity may and 
must be rebuilt in a higher fashion by the agencies of 
morality and religion. So far we are willing to agree 
with Mr. Kidd. Only we do not believe that the first 
work of reason is its only work. We cannot admit 
that morality and religion are divorced from reason. 

Still, if it be true, as wise men taught long before 
Darwin or Adam Smith, that life is a battle — if it be 
true, as we have read in an old book, that the life of 
a Christian man is a " fight of faith " — then we may 
well expect to find conflict and struggle appearing as 
elements in the orderliness and beneficence of the 
social organism. Not indeed such struggle as is 
found in natural selection ; and very possibly not the 
" cut-throat competition," as it is called, of unbridled 
individualism, though in modern commerce we cut 
prices, not throats, and nothing whatever is gained by 
ignoring the advance which that fact implies. Not 
every form of struggle, then, yet some form, and that 
a keen one, is to be expected and desired. Morality 
still leaves the individual personally responsible. He 
must lead his own life, fight his own battle, gain his 
own prize. And if, in the physical world, natural 
selection has indeed been at work, — if, so far as it 
has been at work, its cruel or seeming cruel methods 
have secured this notable result, a teeming population 
of healthy, vigorous creatures, fit in every fibre, fit or 
fittest on all the varied lines along which evolution 
has reached, — then may it not be that social 
struggle, acting in union doubtless with other forces, 
will give us an effective and vigorous and truly happy 



292 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

human society ? A man, or a school, or a world is 
the better of hard work. And the world will be kept 
hard at work ; there is no throwing off the yoke ex- 
cept for that unhappy minority, the idle classes. 
Could we destroy social pressure we might find that 
we had simply destroyed the atmosphere which our 
souls breathe. 

Yet, if we admit the permanence of struggle, we 
must strictly cross-examine the theories which are 
built on that fact, lest they exaggerate it. They have 
called the process natural selection, in some cases, 
perhaps, because they were enamoured of struggle, 
and love-blinded to its dangers ; in some cases, but 
hardly in all cases. What can be the reason why 
Darwinism has had so great a charm for many 
sociologists and moralists ? 

Perhaps the reason was that natural selection stated 
a method of progress without conscious known super- 
intendence. Many different forces struggled or com- 
peted — nature selected ; environment selected ; the 
struggle itself selected. Many different patterns were 
aimed at ; one pattern resulted, and no one had aimed 
at it. Such at least is the suggestion underlying 
Mr. W. H. Mallock's definition of evolution as "the 
reasonable sequence of the unintended." * 

1 Aristocracy and Evolution, p. 97. I merely observe how curiously 
the teleological suggestion recurs, even in a phrase which seems de- 
signed to exclude teleology. 

Mr. Mallock's interesting book marks an advance, in so far as he 
insists that progress due to " great men " is more rapid than the physio- 
logical progress due to natural selection. But he goes on to distin- 
guish this advance, in the sphere of reason and realm of history, from 
mere biological evolution, on the ground that in the latter, wholes com- 
pete, while, in reason and history, parts of the social organism compete 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 293 

But, if this be the meaning of the appeal to natural 
selection and to struggle, it almost forces us to ask 
whether our definition has gone deep enough. Are 
the competitors in reality so many distinct ultimate 
factors in progress ? Or are they all held in the grasp 
of one great evolving system ? not, however, to be 
defined as matter and motion growing more complex ! 
Is the relation between the different forces simply or 
mainly one of rivalry ; is it not predominantly one of 
co-operation ? Is history a Kilkenny cat struggle 
between nations, or in history is struggle itself subor- 
dinated to an evolution of mankind ? Ought an en- 
lightened nation to regard its neighbours mainly as 
rivals, or mainly as brothers in the common tasks of 
civilisation ? And so with ethical conceptions ; is the 
history of moral thought mainly a struggle of system 
against system, of ideal against ideal, or is it an evolu- 
tion of one ideal ? And is each moralist pledged by 
fidelity to his own views to eat up and destroy his 
rivals, or may he also be the conscious servant of a 
wider truth ? Even in nature, one more and more 
questions the adequacy of the view which regards the 
various organisms simply as each other's rivals, the 
co-operating forces simply as happening to coincide. 
And, when we pass on to the fuller " symbiosis " of 
reason and morality, the Darwinian formulae snap in 

against each other. That does not seem to hit the true line of differ- 
ence, or to mark the real ground of the failure of biological sociology 
in the past, which Mr. Mallock once again deplores. " Struggling 
parts" are not unknown in biological speculation. Psychical progress, 
by great men or otherwise, is direct and therefore rapid. 

Mr. Mallock overdoes his apotheosis of competition. We will still 
believe that even the " great man " may rise to higher things than an 
exceptional hugeness of desire. 



294 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

two. Men superficially regarded are competitors, but 
essentially they are their brothers' keepers, and mem- 
bers of one great fellowship. 

Yet one more attempt may be made to find a guide 
for conduct in phenomenal knowledge, if evolution 
everywhere and necessarily is equivalent to progress. 
We have met this view before — more than once ; 
first in the appeal to history, then in Mr. Spencer's 
cosmic doctrine of evolution. Here too, if anywhere, 
the contendings of Mr. C. W. Williams * are relevant. 
Though it offers very little guidance in detail, yet this 
assertion demands to be looked at. It can be held, 
and is, apart from any claim to knowledge of the 
factors of evolution. 

We do not attempt to say anything further regard- 
ing merely physical evolution. In spite of Mr. Spen- 
cer, we doubt the possibility of laying down laws a 
priori for that process. But we must consider, in 
the first place, biological evolution, or the evolution 
of species. And secondly, we shall pass on to speak 
of evolution in human history. 

If we might assume natural selection to be the key 
to organic evolution, we should have a good deal of 
reason for identifying evolution with progress. " Nat- 
ural selection " seems to imply the transforming of 
minute random variations into definite serviceable 
changes. If everywhere there is movement, the 
movement ought everywhere to result in progressive 
efficiency or adaptedness. Yet the assertion is a dif- 
ficult one. 

First of all, there is one very plain condition, which 

1 Review of the Systems of Ethics founded on Evolution. 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 295 

presumably no critic will question, but which ought 
to be made explicit. If evolution is to mean progress, 
it must at least imply continuous adjustment to a 
constant environment. If the environment changes, 
if there is no continuity in the definition of " fitness," 
there can be no real progress. Dissatisfied with my 
dwelling, I build myself a house exactly suited to my 
personal needs. That is a real improvement. But 
forthwith I have to accept an appointment in a dif- 
ferent town, and must sell my new house at a loss 
for whatever it will fetch. The improvement due 
to building for myself is forfeited, and turns to the 
opposite. Now in the far-off past our planet is said 
to have passed through more than one ice age. Of 
course so tremendous a change in environmental 
conditions involved the forfeiting of past progress. 
The tests were all (however gradually) altered. The 
last became first and the first last. The unfit were 
now found fit, while the fit proved unfit. Physiologi- 
cal capital was fatally depreciated, like machinery 
thrown out of use by a better invention. Only here 
there was no better invention. There was no con- 
tinuous progress. There was discontinuity and a 
change of conditions. Evolution then will scarcely 
mean progress unless first it is continuous evolution. 
But continuity in evolution of species implies con- 
stancy of environment. No doubt, speaking broadly, 
we have had such continuity on the earth for a good 
many aeons. 

Secondly, a difficulty occurs as to those species 
which seem unchanged from remote geological times. 
Drummond's Ascent of Man has been the one of our 
authorities which has told us most about these. 



296 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part IV 

There are shells, it seems, absolutely unchanged 
through many ages, because they had " arrived." 
They had reached the limit of possible development 
on the line which they had chosen. More important 
still is the case of man, whose physiological improve- 
ment, according to Fiske, has been superseded and 
arrested by the emergence of reason, and whose cra- 
nial development, according to Professor Cleland, 
has gone about as far as is possible under the laws 
of space in their bearing on the constitution of the 
human body. We cannot therefore say — in spite 
of all Darwinising moralists — that " everything is 
in flux," moving " from change to change eternally." 
Evolution seems to be a definitely limited movement, 
exhausting its possibilities, now in one direction, now 
in another, now in some low forms of organised life 
and again in the highest. Further, was this evolu- 
tion exactly identical with progress even while it 
lasted ? In the case of man, we shall assume that it 
was ; was it equally so in the case of the shells ? 
Progress means, advance on one line ; evolution 
seems to mean, radiation in many directions. It may 
be taken then as meaning, differentiation ; or the 
gradual filling out, by mechanical process, of a de- 
signed and purposed scheme ; or the eliciting of all 
the possibilities latent in " protoplasm " at the first. 
Of these conflicting interpretations the first might 
suggest Spencer ; the second, a Christian teleology ; 
the third, Spinozistic Pantheism. 

There seems no doubt that origin of species by 
natural selection would imply variation, or differ- 
entiation of race from race. Animal A preys upon 
animal B, and threatens to exterminate it. Several 



chap. XX SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 297 

specimens of B may deal with the difficulty in several 
distinct fashions. The swift B will run away from A 
and make its escape. The cunning B will hide itself 
from A and elude notice. The strong B will stand 
up to A manfully, and, after a few struggles, will teach 
A to seek his prey by preference among less warlike 
creatures. There is no one means of survival in the 
struggle ; there are several. At any time, for any 
species, there are innumerable possible advantages. 
Candidates for nature's examination can and do spe- 
cialise. It seems therefore that fitnesses are pro- 
duced, but fitnesses of manifold types. Progressive 
improvement (given constancy of environment) every- 
where results, but it results upon different lines, and 
the clearest outcome of the process is the transition 
from the monotony of a few types to an almost infi- 
nite variety. Of course we must remember that 
variation in other types constitutes a change in the 
" environment " of any one type, whether the altered 
neighbour was a former competitor, or a former ally, 
or liable formerly to be preyed upon, or making prey 
formerly of the type in question. It follows that a 
constant environment, such as " progress " involves, 
can only be affirmed in a relative and limited sense. 
And therefore we must similarly qualify the con- 
nected assertion of continuous organic advance and 
improvement as the result of natural selection. 

A third difficulty strikes one in connection with 
the lowest organisms. Certain shells or the human 
physique have ceased progressing because they have 
reached the allotted goal ; good, but why have the 
lowest not moved up ? Experimental science refuses 
to admit abiogenesis. Wherever life came from at 



298 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

first, it does not now arise from a rearrangement of 
dead matter. If " all were in motion," including the 
initiation de novo of life, then we should see through 
the difficulty. Infusorians would be infusorians — 
only that and nothing more — because they had not 
had time to climb up the ladder. But apparently, in 
point of fact, they have had just as much time as 
the cedars of Lebanon or the crowning race of 
man ; and in that time, of course, a vastly greater 
number of generations. Then why are they still 
mere common infusorians ? Take it either way ; 
why have they not progressed out of that state of 
being ; or, at any rate, why have they not varied ? 
Through billions on billions of generations — to put 
it modestly — they have been competing against each 
other and against the cruelty of environment. Why 
are they still no fitter ? or, if they are fit enough to 
survive — -why has any other organism taken the 
trouble to build up new and higher forms of life ? 
There seems reason to think that this consideration 
points to some grave flaw or gap in naturalistic theo- 
ries of evolution. 1 

On the whole, from our human point of view, we 
consider that the evolution of species has been at- 
tended with progress, because " higher " animals and 
plants have appeared, and, above all, because man has 
emerged. We must also admit that the evolutionary 

1 Mr. A. R. Wallace suggests that the lower types fill up the few 
places of that kind which nature allots ! Mr. Wallace is a little in- 
clined to switch on and off selective struggle at his arbitrary pleasure 
and convenience. His own position is exceptional (see p. 228) ; but, 
on the naturalistic view, ought not the lowest forms to be originating 
before our eyes? 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 299 

process has been attended with a vast differentiation 
of life into forms not all of them admirable from an 
aesthetic or from a qitasi-moml point of view. Whether 
there is advance upon each divergent line, as differen- 
tiation takes place, may appear doubtful, though the 
theory seems to affirm it. Differentiation appears to 
be proclaimed far more clearly than progress, alike 
by the theory of natural selection and by the phe- 
nomena of living but irrational nature. 

When we turn to human evolution, we find at once 
that there are changes. The law of differentiation 
has still been at work, though its conditions are ob- 
scure and ill-comprehended. We have negroes, Es- 
quimaux, Mongols, Caucasians, all probably of the 
same stock, all very dissimilar. Yet even here there 
is something quite different from animal evolution. 
Races of men do not dwell simply side by side, indif- 
ferent to each other, as plant and animal races do. 
You may, of course have a society built in separate 
compartments, as in the institution of caste, or in the 
simpler and more familiar case of slavery. Yet this 
differentiation, gross and excessive as it is, belongs to 
another region of things from animal differentiation. 
The many castes — or the slaves and the oppressors 
— constitute together one society. The potential 
unity of the race, implied in reason, has already that 
notable consequence. Accordingly, the marked physi- 
ological differentiation of the various races of man- 
kind does not seem to have taken place in a society 
having relations even of neighbourhood between its 
several parts. It has been guessed that race differen- 
tiation was due to natural selection in different regions 



300 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

of the world, those naturally superior to cold surviving 
within the Arctic circle, and those who enjoyed im- 
munity from fever surviving in the tropics. At any 
rate, the differentiating process came first. While 
man was mainly an animal — or (what is nearly the 
same thing) while men were divided from their fellows 
by geographical barriers — they diverged physiologi- 
cally ; and no doubt they also diverged socially. But, 
as soon as reason began to assert itself and make its 
way, the tendency to differentiation was held in check 
by a tendency to unity — a growing unity of culture 
and custom pointing to an ultimate far-off unity of 
the whole race. The different branches of the human 
stock can borrow from each other as kindred tribes of 
animals cannot do. Even if, for a time, the aristo- 
cratic few have no mind to help the ignorant many, 
yet the ignorant many are eager to copy the envied 
few. Simple survival of the fittest and neglect of the 
unfit is never long the rule in human affairs. Level- 
ling up is one of the earliest manifestations of reason, 
when set free to do its work. 

In the first instance, as between different societies, 
this process no doubt takes place through war. The 
stronger race conquers, and the defeated race eagerly 
imitates the conquerors. This would be fatal to prog- 
ress if an inferior race were capable of mastering 
higher races on the field of battle. But, as Bagehot 
has forcibly pointed out, up to a certain distance the 
opposite is true ; through many ages, we may be sure 
that the best man or best race will win at the game 
of war. Yet how different are the consequences from 
those of a merely animal victory ! Instead of stub- 
bornly clinging to their old ways, the conquered 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 301 

usually develop an enthusiasm for their conquerors. 
Like the natives of America, they regard the higher 
race as half-divine beings. A whole civilisation or 
semi-civilisation falls into wreck, and a higher or 
stronger one takes its place. It is truly pitiful to 
read of some of the forms this takes, e.g. in Rhode- 
sian Africa, where the black women despise and 
desert the men of their own tribe, and know nothing 
better than to yield themselves to the white men. 

Later on in evolution a race may be conquered 
which is possessed of high attainments in culture. 
But by this time the higher culture is able to rise 
superior to the rude test of efficiency on the field of 
battle, and the great task of unifying humanity still 
goes on, though under somewhat different conditions. 
Greek culture poured eastward like a flood in the track 
of Alexander's conquests, but it filtered westwards 
too in spite of the arms of Metellus or Mummius. 
Grcecia capta — the thing has become a proverb. 
Not less notable and not less hackneyed is the case 
of the barbarian conquerors of the Roman empire, 
who went to school to the civilisation which they had 
overrun. Even the break-up of the empire into 
many national kingdoms, and the disappearance of 
the common Latin speech before the new romance 
formations or the native languages of Teutonic races, 
— even these changes did not signify mere retrogres- 
sion. The new nations were not indifferent to the 
rest of Christendom. They felt themselves members 
of one great civilisation, making their characteristic 
contributions to the common stock, and making them 
all the better because each nation took its own way. 
Even the aberrations of modern nationalism do not 



302 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

imply any forsaking of this standpoint. The nation 
or the race is determined to be its own untrammelled 
self ; yet it is willing, nay it claims, to be one of the 
great family of civilised mankind. The civilised 
world moves essentially as a whole. What one race 
gains, all share. Is it not plain that our posterity 
will come to make the same assertion regarding the 
whole of mankind ? Ultimately even the most back- 
ward races must join the fellowship. Ultimately 
even the least philanthropic must share the burden 
of the weak. "We without them cannot be made 
perfect." 

Human evolution then differs from evolution in the 
organic world. It does not mean progressive diver- 
gence of type from type, but progressive unifying, all 
differentiation being strictly held subordinate to the 
unity prescribed by reason. 

Does human evolution then mean progress ? As- 
suredly man can frame the conception of progress, 
and once he has done so, nothing will satisfy him 
save steady progressive advance and improvement. 

Reason grasps this conception, and reason itself, 
or the free development of intelligence, is certainly 
one condition of historic human progress. Without 
reason there can be no movement onwards or up- 
wards at the more rapid pace at which history moves. 
Very likely Bagehot's explanation is true (so far as it 
goes) that reason was first emancipated among those 
races which " happened " to have free political con- 
stitutions, and acquired in politics the instinct of free 
inquiry. The further question, what maintains prog- 
ress ? or what leads to new advance ? needs no dis- 
cussion. We need not, like Professor Ritchie, seek 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 303 

biological analogies, or look to the mixture of races * 
as the cause of new "varieties." Once the spring is 
opened up, it flows. There is in intelligence, freely 
exercised and firmly organised, a constant tendency 
towards improvement. This is no metaphysical as- 
sumption like Mr. Herbert Spencer's evolutionary 
doctrine; it is plain fact that where the reason of 
man is at work, a force has come into operation 
which makes for progress by an internal law. 

Is that force absolutely sufficient ? Does it carry 
with it all the allied forces of our nature so far as 
other forces are distinguishable from it ? That is 
the doctrine laid down by Mill, and more explicitly 
affirmed over against the claims of morality by 
Buckle. 2 From criminal statistics Buckle drew the 
extraordinarily sweeping inference that goodness and 
sin were fixed quantities, and that intelligence was 
the varying and progressive factor in human nature. 
As well might he have watched half-a-dozen waves 
break on the beach, and then announced that the tide 
was neither ebbing nor flowing. Moral progress, no 
doubt, is slow in comparison with material progress ; 
but who will dare to affirm that in a world of evolu- 
tion goodness alone fails to evolve ? 

When we transport this question into the field of 
history, we are struck with the phenomenon of the 
breakdown of ancient civilisation. The defeat of the 
Roman Empire as a fighting force was the least of its 

1 Compare Bagehot as above ; also Dr. Tiele's Gifford Lectures. 

2 It must be remembered that Mill and Buckle were pre-Darwin- 
ian writers or thinkers. They had no opportunity of asking themselves, 
Does reason alter the working of evolution ? The working of evolu- 
tion was not among their data. 



304 FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD part iv 

failures. Intellectually, too, it was exhausted ; it was 
the transmitter rather than the possessor and enjoyer 
of the great classical culture. The barbarian inroads, 
Sir Henry Maine tells us, may have saved Europe 
from the fate of China. Intellect was exhausted ; 
morality also, as in all protracted civilisations hith- 
erto, had suffered deep perversion. What will guar- 
antee us against a recurrence of such failure? A 
recurrence would be decisive. There are no unspoiled 
barbarian races to take up the torch once more 
and carry it onwards. 

Now there are two advantages on the side of the 
modern world. We have a better method in physical 
science, and we have a better religion, or the religion 
we share with the Christianised empire is better 
acclimatised in our soil. Either the intellectual or 
the moral revival; either the Renaissance or the 
Reformation. In hoc signo vincemus. 

Physical science is no doubt a great and a lasting 
boon. Discoveries large and small are made, and will 
be made ; they pay so well. Bacon was right in his 
enthusiastic eulogies on the " fruitf ulness " of the 
science which he dimly foresaw. But that is hardly 
the question. Even without much physical science 
the humane culture of the great ancient world had 
vast powers for intellectual progress. In spite of 
this it broke down. Can science as applied to physi- 
cal nature really guarantee the world against moral 
paralysis ? 

Others will hold with Mr. Lecky that the decisive 
factors in progress are moral, and — not perhaps 
with Mr. Lecky — that in Christianity, or, as Chris- 
tians prefer to say in Jesus Christ, and in Him alone, 



chap, xx SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS 305 

we have the pledge of the human world's fulfilling 

its destiny, of the vanquishing of all the obstacles 

that can arise, of the great career's reaching, at last, 

that 

one far-off divine event 
To which the whole creation moves. 



INDEX 



Abiogenesis, 36, 297 

Absolute ethics, 12, 109 

Abstraction, 19, 30, 181 

Accident, 187 

Acquired qualities, 204. See Use- 
Inheritance 

^Esthetics, 182 n., 184, 276 

Africa, 264, 272 

Agnosticism, 22, 23, 24, 183 

Alexander (Prof.), 6, 78, 109, 134- 
147, 149, 224, 280,281, 288 

Allen, Mr. Grant, 72 

Altruism, 49-59, 158, 162, 166, 181, 
259, 271. See also Sympathy 

Altruism (ethical), 54 

Amphimixis, 242, 254, 272 

Analogy of Darwinism, 120, 281 

Animism, 17 

Anthropology, 174 

" Aphestic " sympathy, 173 

"Apostolical succession," 241 

Aristotle, 63, 188, 271 

" Arrest of the body," 162, 164, 215 n., 
216 n., 222, 268 
of evolution, 163, 172, 281, 296 

As regards Protoplasm, 231 n. 

Ascent 0/ Man, 37, 154-168. See also 
Drummond 

Assumptions of the essay, 7, 8 

Atavism, 94, 138, 210 

Atheism, 23 

Athletes, 164 

Authority, 115 

Bacon, 304 

Bagehot, 124-132, 176, 177, 268, 281, 

288, 300, 302 
Balance, 57, 93, 96, 180, 182. See 

also Equilibrium 



Baldwin, Prof., 31 n., 55 n., 176, 

257 «., 281, 284 n. 
Balfour, Mr. A. J., 182 n., 267, 269, 

270, 276 
Barbarians, 176, 180, 301, 304 
Biology, 2, 6, 8, 17, 28-37, 65, 115, 

!57. etc -i I 7 2 » et c., 259, 266, 272, 

281, etc., 286, 290 
Biological Religion, 36 
Blending of Races, 131, 303 
Body (human), 162, 285. See Arrest 
Bradley, Mr. F. H., 140 
Buckle, 265 n., 303 
Buddhism, 151, 222 
Burke, 44 
Butler, 56, 57 
By-products, 90, 182 

Caird, Dr. E., 29, 67 n. 

Caird, Mrs. M., 263 

Campbell, J. M'Leod, 145 

Caste, 299 

"Catholicism," 21, 64 

Celibacy, religious, 222 

Chance, 74, 187, etc., 251, 287 

Chemical affinity, 156 

China, 130, 235, 304 

Chivalry, 21 

Christianity, 21, 29, 114, 123, 154, 158, 

168, 176, 178, 196, 226, 264, 271, 

291, 296, 304 
Civilisation, 164, 264, 302, etc. 
Cleland, Prof., 164, 296 
Clodd, Mr. E., 77 

Cobbe, Miss F. P., 119-123, 150, 159 
Coincidence, 189 
Coleridge, 269 
Comfort, standard of, 289. 
Competition, 291. See Struggle 



307 



308 



FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



Complexity, 83, 91, 95 

Compromise, 142 

Comte, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10-65, 78, 94, 99, 

102, 104, 106, 114, etc., 149, 157, 

158, 167, 252, 258, etc., 261, 263, 

265, 279 
Conscience, 137, etc., 267, 284 
Consciousness, the moral. See Moral 

Consciousness 
Conservation of energy, 190 n. (cf. 

p. 76) 
Conservatism, 128, 261 
Constancy of environment, 295, 297 
Continuity in thought, 36, 37 
Continuity of germ plasm, 240, etc., 

254 
Co-relation, 169 
Correlation of forces, 76, 190 n. 
Cosmic Darwinism, 78, etc. 

catastrophe, 86 

history, 95 

principle of love, 151, 165, 166 

process, 95, 279, 281, 294 

struggle, 149, 151, 153, 159 
Cosmic Philosophy, 80 n. 
Crime, 138, 220 
Custom, 127, etc., 289 
" Cut-throat Competition," 291 

Darwin, 65-75, 85, 103, etc., 119, etc., 
125, 150, 155, 168, 171, 188, 189, 
192, etc., 216 n., 229, 232, 238, 
etc., 247, 272, 275 n., 283, 291. 
See also — 

Darwinism, 116, 119-123, 131, etc., 
146, etc., 154, 159, 167, 171, 182, 
etc., 187, etc., 246, 281, etc., 286, 
etc. 

Darwinianism, 231 n. See Stirling 

Darwinism and Politics. See Ritchie 

Darwinism i?i Morals. See (Miss) 
Cobbe 

Data 0/ Ethics, 97 

Daudet, 160 

de Maistre, 268 

de Vaux, Madame, 11 

Death, 85, 217, 247, etc. 

Deism, 192 

Democracy, 130, etc. 

Democritus, 79. 

Design. See Teleology 



Determinism, 53, 136, 176 
Dewey, Prof., 179 n. 
Differentiation, 126, 131, 156, 296, 

299 (cf. 83, etc.) 
Discussion, 130, etc. (cf. 143, 144), 

288 
Disraeli, 44, 134 
Dissolution, 84, etc. 
Drummond, 35, 151, 154-168, 171, 

283, 295 
Dualism, 192 

Economics, 4, 29, 96, 260, 289 

Economy of material, 133 

Egoism, 49, etc., 166, 182 

Elimination, 170, etc. 

Elliptical language, 203 

Embryology, 82 

Emotions, 179 

Empedocles, 79 

Environment, 192, 194, 204, 246, 253, 

281 n., 295, 297 
Epigenesis, 273 
Equilibrium, 84, 86, 139. See also 

Balance 
Esprit oVeiisemble, 29 
Ethics, 5, 12, 16, 24, etc. 
Evohition of Sex, 154 
Evolutioizal Ethics, 66 n., 105 n. (cf. 

294 and n.) 
Evolutionary Ethics, 34, 104, etc., 

151, 278, etc. 
speculation, 2, 90, 122, 155, 279, 

etc. 

Faculties, 269 

Family, 20, 174 (cf. 165) 

Famine, 217 

Father, "evolution of a," 167 (cf. 

176, etc.) 
Fecundity, 70, 173, 214, 217 
Feminine ideals, 177 (cf. 167) 
Fetishism, 18, 20, 22 
Finlayson, Dr., 36 
First Principles (Spencer), 83, 96 
Fiske, 90, 154, 162, 165 
Fission, 161, 247 
France, 261 n. 

Free will, 53, 136, 176, 190, 284 
Future rewards and punishments, 

270 



INDEX 



309 



Galton, 239, etc. 

Geddes, Prof. P., 151, 154 

Gemmules, 238 

Germ plasm, 240, etc., 253, etc. 

Ghettos, 218 

Gibbon, 271 

Gifford Lectures, 231 n. See Stirling, 

Tiele 
Glacial age, 295 
Gnosticism, 36, 220 
Greeks, 130, 151, 301 
Green, T. H., 140, 226 
Grove, 76 

Habit and Instinct, 179, 212 n. t 215 n., 

216 n., 266 n. 
Hatch, Dr., 38, etc. 
Health, 108 

Hedonism, 33, 96, 113-116, 140 
Hegel, Hegelianism, 5, 65, 145, 229, 

269, 276, 286 
Heredity, 69, 197, 236, etc., 274 
Hierarchy, 241 

of sciences, 24, 25 
" High Church theory," 241 
History, 38-48, 94, 176 
Howard, 178 
" Humanity," 30 
Huxley, 48, 153, 160, 166, etc. 
Hyper-Darwinism, 199, 206, 233-277, 

283 

Ice age, 295 

Idealism, 5, 25, 26, 30, 91, 191, 285 

Idioplasm, 240 

" Idiot," 112, 118 

Imitation, 128, 131, 176, 268, 281 

Immortality (potential), 247, 248, 
252 

Individualism, 97, 290, etc. 

Industrialism, 21 

Infancy, 165, 173 

Inheritance, 274. See Use-Inheri- 
tance, Heredity 

Instinct, 127, 179, 212 

Intelligence in animals, 163, 211, 
215 n. 

Introspection, 16, 17 

Intuition, Intuitionalism, 16, 80, 98, 
103, 121, 134, 139, 159, 284 



Jacobins, 289 

Jaeger, 240 n. 

James, Prof. W., 179 n. 

Jevons, Dr. F. B., 288 n. 

Jews, 218 

Joule, 76 

Justice, 150, 167 

Kaftan, Prof., 41 

Kant, 17, 18, 170, 269 

Kentucky cave fish, 235 

" Kilkenny cats," 293 

Kilpatrick, Dr., 56 n. 

Kidd, Mr. B., 7, 130, 160, 167, 211 n. t 

223, 242, 254, 256, 258-277, 283, 

289, 291 

Laissez faire, 98, 116, 133, 282 
Lamarck, 70, 73, 105, 184, 199, 210, 

246 
Lamarckian factor, 235, 241, 246. 

See also Use-Inheritance 
Language, 180, 203, 270, 274, 288 
Lankester, Prof., 236 
Lecky, Mr. W. H., 304 
Libertarianism, 284. See Free Will 
Liberty Defence League, 47 
Limitations of knowledge, 24, 276 
" Links," missing, 228 
" Logos," 269 
Lotze, 80 

Mackenzie, Prof., 5, 46 
Maine, Sir H., 129, 304 
Mallock, Mr. W. H., 3 n., 292 
Malthus, 68, 70, 208 
Manchester Guardian, 12 n. 
Martineau, Miss H., 11 

Dr. James, 10 1 
Materialism, 23, 189, 237 
Mechanism, 190, 191, 194, 197, 201, 

205, 237 
Mediaeval period, 20, 21 
Mediterranean shells, 237 
Mellone, Dr. S. H., 179 n., 215 n. 
Metaphors, 144 

" Metaphysical stage," 16, 23, 252 
Metaphysics, 16, 18, 19, 22, 24, 38, 

252. See Philosophy 
Militarism, 20, 85, 98, 99, 129, 131. 

See also War 



3io 



FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



Mill, J. S., i6, 34, 43, 96, 103, 188, 

265 n., 289, 303 
Mixture of races, 131, 303 
Monogamy, 174 
Monotheism, 18, 21 
Monstrosities, 200, 273 
Moral Consciousness, 7, 8, 33 
Moral Order and Progress. See 

Alexander, Order, Progress 
Morgan, Prof. Lloyd, 179 n. t 211, 

215 n., 216 n., 266 n., 283 
Morley, Mr. John, 47 
Mother, " evolution of a," 165, 173 
" Mysticism," 237 
Mythology, 143 

Napoleon Bonaparte, 224, 226 

Nationalism, 301 

" Nature," 19, 252 

Natural Law, 15, 19, 22 

Natural Law in the Spiritual World, 

36 

Natural Selection, 68, 82; (of reason) 
162; (of sympathy) 179, etc., 182, 
186-232, 245, 249, 250, 251, 281, 
etc., 287, 294, etc. ; (summarised) 
192, 193 ; A, B, and C, 207, etc. 

Naturalism, Ethics of. See Sorley 

Newman, 268 

Nile, 245 

Notion, the, 269 

Nutrition, 161, 255, 272 

Old Testament, 216, 275 
Oliphant, Mr. J. C, 66 n. 
Ontogeny, 244 
Order, Moral — Prof. Alexander, 137, 

etc. 
Organic evolution, 67 
Organisms, 31, 32, 105, etc., no, 264, 

287 
Organism, the social, 101, 104, etc., 

112, 290 

Pain, 149, 153 
Pangenesis, 238 
Panmixia, 236, 256 
Pantheism, 152, 192, 296 
Paul, St., 28, 63, 64 
Pearson, Mr. Charles, 264 

Prof. Karl, 182 «., 216 n., 283, 284 



" Perihestic" sympathy, 173 

" Permutations and combinations," 

243 
Pessimism, 151 
Pestilence, 218 

Phenomenalism, 32, 33, 50, 54 
Philosophy, 191, 192, 201, 204 
Phrenology, 16, 51 
Phylogeny, 244, 255 
Physiology, 29, 32 
Platt-Ball, Mr., 259 n. 
" Playing cards," 245 
" Plurality of causes," 188, 196, 209 
Polar Bodies, 242 

Political Economy. See Economics 
Politics, 3, 61, 124-133 
Polytheism, 18, 19 
" Positive," 15, 20 
Positive Philosophy, 11, 12, 13, 24 
Positive Polity, 11, 13, 15, 24, 60-64 
Powers, spiritual and temporal, 21, 

48, 60 
Practical sociology, 2 
Preformation, 273 
Present Evolution of Man, 220 
Priests, 20 
Printing, 274 
Progress, 43, 127, etc., 262, 279, 294, 

302 
moral, 138, 143, etc., 224, etc. 
Protozoa and Protophyta, 244, etc., 

253 

Prudence, 107 

Psychology, 16, 31 «., 49, etc., 179 n. 
Punishment, 138, 220, 270 
Purpose. See Chance, Teleology 

Quality and quantity in reproduction, 
172, 214. See Fecundity 

Races of mankind, 126, 131, 299, 304 

Radicalism, 262 

Reason, 23, 30, 122, 127, 132, 153, 162, 

etc., 179, 224, 231, 267, etc., 274, 

etc., 289, 290, 299, etc. 
Reciprocity in organisms, 230, 237. 

See Organisms 
Reformation, 15, 304 
Reich, Dr. Emil, 229 n. 
Reid, Dr. G. A., 220 
Relativity (of knowledge), 24 



INDEX 



311 



Religion, 1, 15, 22, 264, 270, etc., 276, 
284, 304 
Comtist, 15, 63 

Renaissance, 304 

Reproduction, 161, 172. See He- 
redity 

Responsibility, 291 

Retrogression, 164, 256, 260, etc. 

Revolution (French). 15 

Rewards, 270 

Rhodes, 272, 301 

Righteousness, 150, 167 

Ritchie, Prof., 82, 132, 133, 229, 274, 
282, 302 

Ritschl, 40, 41 

Robertson Smith, 170 

Romanes, 235, 242 n., 243, 272 
Lecture by Huxley, 148, etc. 

Rome, 177, etc., 301, 303 

Sadler, 70 

St. Simon, 10 

Sandeman, Mr. G.. 119 «., 204, 229, 

etc., 238 n. 
Schiller, 161, 286 
Science, 1, 21, 23, etc., 190, 192, 201, 

205, 304 
Science 0/ Ethics, 103-118. See Mr. 

Leslie Stephen 
Secular power. See Temporal 
Seeley, 42, 265 
Selfishness, 58, 263, 268, 271. See 

Egoism 
Separation of powers, 21, 48, 60 
Sex, 155, 165, 242, 244, 248, etc., 254 
Sexual selection, 70, etc., 206 
Shells, 237, 296 
Slaves, 299 

Smith, Adam, 112, 291 
Social dynamics, 13 (cf. 138, 139, 

261, etc.) 
statics, 12 (cf. 138, 139, 261) 
Social philosophy, 4, 5, 285 
Social Philosophy, Introduction to. 

See Mackenzie 
Socialism, 99, 166, 260, 262 
Sociality, 120, etc., 150, 159, 167, 195 
Sociology, 1, 12, 24, 25, 157,175,223, 

278, etc. 
Sorlev, Professor, 51 n. 
Specialisation, 297 



Spencer, 4, 6, 12, 16, 25, 57, 66, 70, 
76-102, 103, 104, no, 116, 125, 
129, 140, 149, 155, etc., 174, 177, 
180, 184, 195, 260, 265, 280, 287, 
294, 296, 303 

Spinoza, 2, 105, 296 

Spiritual Dower, 21, 48, 60 

Stability of germ plasm, 242, etc. 

Stages, the three, 14, etc., 48 

State, the, 20 

Statistics, 182 

Stationary State, 96, 260. See Bal- 
ance, Equilibrium 

Stephen, Sir Fitzjames, 52 

Mr. Leslie, 6, 78, 81, 82, 103, 118 
120, 125, 135, 139, 140, 149, 152, 
268, 274, 280 

Sterilisation, 221 

Stevenson, R. L., 58 n. 

Stirling, Dr. J. Hutchison, 119 n., 
229, 231 269 

Stirp, 240, etc. 

Stoicism. 151 

Struggle, 107 116, 132, 150, etc., 155, 
166, 183, 192, 195, 207, 260, 262, 
281, etc., 288, etc. 
for life of others, 160, etc., 166, 167 
with beasts, 216 

Subjective synthesis, 26 

" Suckers," 244 

Summaries (Psychological altruism), 
54; (Comte), 64; (Spencer's 
ideals), 100; (Darwinism and 
chance), 200, 207; (Natural 
selection in man), 222, etc.; 
(General), 279, etc. 

Supernatural religion, 15, 22 

Supremacy of man, 152, 153, 163, 
216 

Sutherland, Mr. A., 169-184, 211 n., 
214, 215 n., 220, 225, 259 n., 282, 
284 

Sympathy, 112, 113, 150, 173, 177, 
179, etc. See also Altruism 

Teleology, 188, 192, 194, etc., 273, 

292 n., 296 
Temporal power, 21, 48, 60 
Teutons, 130, 176, 178, 180, 301, 304 
Theism, 90, 95, 155, 273 
Theocracy, 20 



312 



FROM COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD 



Theological stage, 17, 23 

Theoretical sociology, 1 

Thomson, Professor J. A., 151, 154 

Tiele, Prof., 303 n. 

Tissue, social, 115 

Tools, 164 

Totemism, 174 

Transition from science to art, 4, 

3 2 
Tubingen criticism, 63 
Type, 108, 109 

Unifying of human race, 299, etc., 

302 
Universe as an organism, 82, 281 «., 

287 
Use-Inheritance, 73, 81, 171, 204, 207, 

210, 234, etc., 251 n., 256, 272, 273. 

See also Lamarckian factor 
Utilitarianism, 103, 117 



Variation, 74, 145, 242, 244, 254, 272, 

299 
Variation of Plants and Animals 

under Domestication, 75 n. 
Vice, 220 
Vitality, 108, 140 ' 
von Baer, 82 n. 

Wallace, Dr. A. R., 71, 126, 162, etc., 

228, 298 71. 
War, 221. See Militarism 
Weismann, 8i, 85, 85 «., 125, 

130, 164, 199, 233-257, 260, 272, 

283 
Williams, Mr. C. W., 66 n., 105 n„ 

294 
Words. See Language 
Writing, 274 

Zeitgeist, 45, 264 



SOCIAL EVOLUTION. 

By BENJAMIN KIDD. 

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OUTLINES OF SOCIAL THEOLOGY. 

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